I think most would agree with me when I say that Alt-J never really topped their debut, but that’s not through lack of trying. An Awesome Wave was so fresh and clean that when we all got our first taste of the band, it was hard to put your finger on where this sound came from, and what they would end up doing next. The next few albums churned out a few great singles, “3WW” from RELAXER, and “Hunger Of The Pine” from This Is All Yours are personal highlights, but overall the LPs never quite reached the same level of cohesion that the debut did. That doesn’t mean the band have lost all of their charm though. The amount of off the wall ideas that you can squeeze into a series of albums over a decade, and still come out with something that sounds, ultimately, like an Alt-J album… is astounding. The pure creativity has always been the one thing you can rely on.

To celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the album that changed our lives, we’re playing an extra show at Brixton Academy where we will play An Awesome Wave in full. Tickets on Friday 22nd April, 10am BST. https://t.co/MDdbFL3N82 pic.twitter.com/bDkunsytla

— Δ (alt-J) (@alt_J) April 14, 2022

The show comes in the middle of an already announced tour of the UK, a 14^th date has been added to the beginning of the group’s now 4-night residency of Brixton Academy. About half of the tour has already sold out, but you can see here for full details on any of the full tour. See below for the full list of dates on The Dream Tour:

6/5/22 – Barrowland Ballroom – Glasgow
7/5 – Barrowland Ballroom – Glasgow
9/5 – O2 Academy – Leeds
10/5 – O2 Academy – Bristol
12/5 – Rock City – Nottingham
13/5 – O2 Apollo – Manchester
17/5 – O2 Academy Brixton – London (An Awesome Wave Anniversary Show)
18/5 – O2 Academy Brixton – London
19/5 – O2 Academy Brixton – London
20/5 – O2 Academy Brixton – London
22/5 – Olympia Theatre – Dublin
23/5 – Olympia Theatre – Dublin
25/5 – The Telegraph Building – Belfast
27/5 – O2 Academy – Birmingham

Hard Drive Gold
Wednesday
Pre-save at https://t.co/v0qNNT3PkY pic.twitter.com/bUJhRJoxxp

— Δ (alt-J) (@alt_J) January 3, 2022

In a statement released around the announcement of the album the band claim their new album shows, “both beauty and darkness […] often seamlessly merging on the same track, a purposeful choice that pays dividends across the record” and will feature, “true-crime inspired stories and tales of Hollywood and the Chateau Marmont [as well as some of the bands] most personal moments to-date”. You can pre-order the album, in one (or several) of its many formats here. You can also enter a draw to win “a totally one-off Larrivee P-O5 acoustic guitar, signed by lyricist Joe and covered in his handwritten lyrics for Get Better.” Tickets cost £5.00 with all proceeds going to Plan International, “a global children’s charity working to create lasting equality for girls and protect the rights of all children.” Hear the recent single, and the song behind these handwritten lyrics below.

Accompanying the new album comes the bands recently expanded UK tour. Due to significant demand, extra dates were added to shows at London’s O2 Academy Brixton, and Dublin’s Olympia Theatre. See here for full ticket information.

Regarding the dangers of touring in today’s day and age; the band’s drummer, Thom Green, explained how the group will have to “be extra vigilant,” in an interview with the BBC. “Whatever we have to do, that’s what we’ll do, because it’ll be so worth it just to get on stage again.” This must mean a lot coming from Green after he, like millions of others, has spent a large portion of the pandemic shielding due to a rare condition causing him to have a kidney operation as a student. Then upon contracting COVID-19 in the summer Green spent a week in the hospital, “I’m actually fortunate that I’m ok and I’m back to normal, but I don’t want that to happen again.”

See below Alt-J’s planned UK tour:

7/5/22 – Barrowland Ballroom – Glasgow
9/5 – O2 Academy – Leeds
13/5 – O2 Apollo – Manchester
18/5 – O2 Academy Brixton – London
19/5 – O2 Academy Brixton – London
22/5 – Olympia Theatre – Dublin
23/5 – Olympia Theatre – Dublin
25/5 – The Telegraph Building – Belfast
27/5 – O2 Academy – Birmingham

The festival took to Instagram to announce news of the line-up confirmations, each act was announced in separate posts. Within one of the posts, NOS Alive celebrated the return of  ‘What You Know‘ performers Two Door Cinema Club to the event.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by NOS Alive (@nos_alive)

The festival will take place between 6th-9th July 2022. After two cancellations, including this year, music fans will again flock to the festival’s location Passeio Marítimo de Algés in Portgual.

The latest acts to be confirmed include English indie rockers Alt-J and Two Door Cinema Club, both acts were previously announced within the 2021 line-up and will be honouring their billing within the 2022 event. Ticket holders will get to see Mercury Prize winners Alt-J perform on the second day, 7th July 2022. The group bagged the award in 2012 for their debut album ‘An Awesome Wave’. Irish rockers and NME award nominees, Two Door Cinema Club are set to perform on the event’s last day, 9th July 2022.

Also included within the recent line-up announcement was singer St. Vincent. The Grammy award winner will perform on the Sagres Stage and her set will be on the festival’s third day, 8th July 2022. Ticketholders will be treated to the singer’s classics as well as material from her newest album ‘Daddy’s Home’, released 14^th May 2021. The artist known as Annie Erin Clark won the Grammy for Best Alternative Album for her 2014 album ‘St. Vincent’. Accelerating her accolade further, St. Vincent was the first woman to win the award in 20 years. Before her 2015 win, the last female to win the category was Sinead O’Connor in 1991 with her second album ‘I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got’.

The festival, which was once ranked within the top 12 European festivals by NME, has been running for over 14 years. NOS Alive was first organised under the different name of Oeiras Alive! In 2007 with an explosive line-up of Pearl Jam, The Smashing Pumpkins and Beastie Boys. The next year, the festival’s name changed again to Optimus Alive!, the 2008 event saw a range of headline acts, Rage Against the Machine, Bob Dylan and Neil Young. The festival was named its current title of NOS Alive in 2014 and premiered the new name with a superb headline list of Arctic Monkeys, The Black Keys and Indie darlings The Libertines. The event’s name is seemingly taken from the festival’s main sponsor, the telecommunications company NOS, which was also previously named Optimus

The full line-up includes Alt-J, Caribou, Da Wesel, Dino D’Santiago, Faith No More, Hobo Johnson, Imagine Dragons, Inhaler, Metallica, Manel Cruz, Parcels, Parov Stelar, Phoebe Bridgers, Royal Blood, St. Vincent, Seasick Steve, Tom Misch, The Lovemakers and Two Door Cinema Club.

Click here to purchase tickets.

Reduxer is set to recast the album through ’11 new reinterpretations’ from artists and producers ‘from all over the world‘. The record includes remixes by soul-blues singer Jimi Charles Moody, rapper Tuka and synthpop artist Twin Shadow, and new verses from hip-hop luminaries like Pusha T, Danny Brown and Kontra K. To support the upcoming release, the four-piece today released the remixed ‘Deadcrush’ as a single. Check it out below.

Taken as a preview for the album, fans can expect the release to be a total reimagining of the original. Compared to the Relaxer mix, Alchemist and Trooko’s production for ‘Deadcrush’ is more buried and washed, with added hi-hats and layers of expansive reverb. Singer Joe Newman’s Oriental-styled melisimas are also set well against Danny Brown’s inward-looking new verse, which touches on interesting themes of paranoia, dissatisfaction and war.

Relaxer was released in June last year to positive reviews from critics. Fusing new and old, the album featured original string arrangements from the London Metropolitan Orchestra, a live-recorded children’s choir and the band’s classic repertoire of electronic-computerised effects. Backed by lead single ‘3WW‘, the LP peaked at number six in the UK charts.

Alt-J are also heading on a tour of the UK and Ireland to support the new album. Buy tickets here  from July 20th and see their announced dates below:

10/15/18 – Olympia Theatre – Dublin
10/21 – SEC Armadillo – Glasgow
10/23 – Town Hall – Leeds
10/24 – De Montfort Hall – Leicester
10/25 – Sage Hall – Gateshead
10/28 – Bridgewater Hall – Manchester
10/29 – Royal Albert Hall – London

Reduxer – out September 28th

The band will take part in the 10th Anniversary celebrations of London’s O2 Arena, commemorating a decade since the venue opened, but the band will also undergo a run of dates around England’s seaside towns, including Msrgate, and Weston-Super-Mare, and Blackpool.

Alt-J are also scheduled to play festival sets at Boardmasters, Bluedot, and Glastonbury, before heading out on a tour of their own after summer. You can see the full list of dates below.

The band have been steadily realising songs to preview their new album Relaxer since March, with ‘3WW’ ating as the LP’s lead single, before ‘In Cold Blood’ and ‘Adeline’ followed.

Keyboardist Gus Unger-Hamilton spoke to Zane Lowe recently, and discussed the origins of the song, which was written whilst the band were on tour.

“It initially started to be written in Australia, and was one of the ones we’d do in soundcheck quite a lot – just like playing with little bits of it and trying it out, trying to remember what was good with recordings and voice memos,” Unger-Hamilton said. “Then we’d come back to it time and time again, and when we came back to the UK to make album number three, we knew ‘Adeline’ was going to be a song that would be on that record. So we got together, unwrapped all of our ideas and looked at what we had – and then we put it all together.”

04/09/2017-Brighton- Brighton Centre
05/09- Margate- Dreamland
06/09- Bournemouth- O2 Academy
08/09- Weston-super-Mare-Grand Pier
09/09- Blackpool- Empress Ballroom

Tickets for the dates go on sale at 9am on Friday June 2, and can be bought here.

The deep line-up will also include Andy C, Jake Bugg, Slaves, Patrick Topping, Wild Beasts, Roger Sanchez, Becky Hill, Solardo, TQD, Theo Kottis, Tom Grennan, Cadenza and Youngr.

Boardmasters’ Andrew Topham expressed delight and eager anticipation for the festival in a statement, saying, ‘We are hugely excited to announce our three headliners and other world-class musical talent as part of what’s shaping up to be the best Boardmasters line up yet. Every year, the biggest names in music and surfing keep Cornwall firmly on the map as the festival continues to go from strength to strength. Boardmasters has an incredible community of dedicated fans who we look forward to welcoming everyone back for another summer of awesome surf and music action on two amazing sites – Fistral Beach and Watergate Bay.’

The news comes just a week after funk icons, if that’s the right word, Jamiroquai announced they would return with a string of overseas dates in Japan, South Korea and continental Europe between May and August. They also shared a teaser video for their forthcoming eighth album, ‘Automation’, which is expected to be released at some point this year. The video features a new item of wacky headwear for the notoriously bonneted and eccentric frontman Jay Kay. You can check out the video below, as well as the full list of the band’s tour dates:

25/5 – Tokyo International Forum – Tokyo
28/5 – Seoul Jazz Festival – Seoul17/6 – Release Athens Festival – Athens
9/6 – North Sea Jazz – Rotterdam
11/7 – Firenze Summer Festival @ Visarno Arena – Florence
14/7 – Pori Jazz – Pori
16/7 – Musilac – Aix-Les-Bains
18/7 – Moon & Stars – Locarno
22/7 – Colours of Ostrava – Czech Republic
5/8 – Sudoeste – Portugal

Jamiroquai aren’t the only Boardmasters headliner with a new album due to be released this year; Alt-J will release their as yet untitled third album later this year. The exact release date is unknown but based on the festival dates the band have lined up this year, speculation is rife that it will be some time before their first set, at INmusic festival on the 19^th June. You can check out the full list of their announced festival dates at the bottom of this article. As for the sound of the new album, drummer Thom Sonny Green was rather cryptic as he told NME, ‘There’s been a lot of ideas. We’re very excited about it, I think it’s going to be pretty interesting. I feel like it’ll be different, but I don’t know. It’s funny – we write together so well and it comes pretty naturally and pretty quick, but I can’t predict it. We write what we feel.’

19-21/6 – INmusic Festival – Zagreb
23-25/6 – Southside Festival – Tuttlingen
23-25/6 – Hurricane Festival – Scheessel
29/6-2/7 – Rock Werchter – Rotselaar
6-8/7 – Mad Cool Festival – Madrid
6-8/7 – NOS Alive – Algés
6-8/7 – Pohoda Festival – Trencin
12-17/7 – Electric Castle Festival – Cluj-Napoca
19-22/7 – Colours of Ostrava – Ostrava
28-30/7 – Panorama Festival – New York
17-19/8 – Pstereo Festival – Trondheim
18-20/8 – Lowlands Festival – Biddinghuizen
1-2/9 – Popaganda – Stockholm

The festival will be held between the 9^th and the 13^th August at Fistral Beach on Watergate Bay in Cornwall. Tickets are on sale now, available from the Boardmasters website here.