After a three year break, alt-J announced their third album Relaxer coming out June 9th via Canvasback Music. It’s the follow-up to their 2014 album This Is All Yours. The announcement on March 6th was accompanied by the atmospheric single “3WW,” featuring cover art from the 1998 PlayStation game LSD. The song leads with two-minutes of dreamy-guitar instrumentation that builds to the first verse. Alt-J had this to post on Facebook about their upcoming album:
“3WW” is a translation of a binary code (a coding system using 0 and 1 to represent a letter or digit): 00110011 01110111 01110111. The band name alt-j itself also represents keys used to create the mathematical symbol for change, ∆ (“delta”).
Frontman Joe Newman leads with trippy renaissance verses until a new voice, Ellie Roswell of the band Wolf Alice, joins in, introducing an abstractly romantic vibe that’s much smoother than the edged-out rock we’ve come to expect from alt-J.
Alt-J will embark on a summer tour to promote Relaxer. The band has a surprise for fans who pre-order their newest eight track album.
USA. You can get early access US tour tickets now, when you pre-order our new album RELAXER from the US web-store – https://t.co/mZMFA40LnM pic.twitter.com/8bnhvfqpm1
— Δ (alt-J) (@alt_J) March 7, 2017
alt-J 2017 tour dates
July 27, 2017 – Merriweather Post Pavillion – Columbia, MD
July 28, 2017 – Blue Hill bank Pavillion – Boston, MA
July 29, 2017 – Panorama Music & Arts Festival – New York, NY
August 1, 2017 – Jacobs Pavillion – Cleveland, OH
August 3, 2017 – Starlight Theater – Kansas City, MO
August 4, 2017 – Hinterland Music Festival – St. Charles, IA
August 7, 2017 – Red Rocks Amphitheater – Morrison, CO
August 9, 2017 – Shrine Auditorium – Los Angeles, CA
Feature Photo By Darligulves – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link