alt-J discuss new album ‘Reduxer’: “Music fans are a lot more open now”

Ahead of the release of their latest album ‘Reduxer’ today, alt-J’s Joe Newman and Gus Unger-Hamilton spoke to us about the background for their new, somewhat unexpected project.

While the new record features reworkings of tracks from their 2017 album ‘Relaxer’, it welcomes a host of hip hop collaborators onboard, including the likes of Little Simz, Pusha T, GoldLink, Rejjie Snow and Kontra K.

“The point I keep coming back to is that music fans are a lot more open now to different genres of music and I think a lot of fans of ours are also hip-hop fans and that’s not weird,” notes Gus. “I’ve done a lot of interviews about this album with places around the world now and most people who can’t seem to get their heads around it are people over 40. Like, ‘So… are you a hip-hop band now?’” he jokes, adopting a faux-perplexed tone, “whereas most of our fans are like: Yeah. LIT. Or some other young person’s word that I can’t use properly.”

‘Reduxer’ is out now, via Infectious Music. The band are also set to play a series of UK shows next month - check them out below.

OCTOBER
15 Dublin, Olympia Theatre
16 Dublin, Olympia Theatre
17 Dublin, Olympia Theatre
21 Glasgow, SEC Armadillo
23 Leeds, Town Hall
24 Leicester, De Montfort Hall
25 Gateshead, Sage
28 Manchester, Bridgewater Hall
29 London, Royal Albert Hall
30 London, Royal Albert Hall

The October issue of DIY lands in stockists across the UK on Friday 5th October.