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Alt-J (stylised as alt-J, real name Δ) are an English indie rock band formed in 2007 in Leeds. Their lineup includes Joe Newman (guitar/lead vocals), Thom Sonny Green (drums), Gus Unger-Hamilton (keyboards/vocals), and formerly Gwil Sainsbury (guitar/bass). Their debut album An Awesome Wave was released in May 2012 in Europe, and in September 2012 in the United States, and won the 2012 British Mercury Prize. Sainsbury left the band in early 2014. Their second album, This Is All Yours, was released on 22 September 2014 and went straight to number one in the United Kingdom. In February 2022 the band released their fourth studio album The Dream. Name The band's actual name is the triangle-shaped symbol Δ (the capital Greek letter delta). The band often makes references to triangles (for example, the song "Tesselate" mentions "triangles are my favourite shape", and they make triangle symbols with their fingers during concerts), which they say is just due to it being a visually appealing shape. "Alt-J" comes from the key sequence used to generate the symbol Δ on an Apple Mac computer: Alt+J. The cover art of the band's debut album An Awesome Wave shows an overhead view of the largest river delta in the world, where the Ganges River meets the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh. Alt-J were previously known as "Daljit Dhaliwal" and then "Films", but were later forced to change to "alt-J" because an American band called "The Films" already existed. History 2007–2010: Formation and early years alt-J (∆) were formed when Gwilym (Gwil) Sainsbury (guitar/bass), Joe Newman (guitar/lead vocals), Augustus (Gus) Unger-Hamilton (keyboards/vocals) and Thomas Stuart (Thom Sonny) Green (drums) met at University of Leeds in 2007. Unger-Hamilton (younger brother of Ferdy, head of A&R for Polydor Records) studied English, the other three Fine Art. According to Newman, "I basically went to art school to start a band." In their second year of studies, Newman showed Sainsbury some of his own songs and the pair began recording on GarageBand in their hall rooms with Sainsbury acting as producer. The band's sound arose from living in student halls, where noise had to be kept to a minimum, so that they were unable to use bass guitars or bass drums. 2011–2012: An Awesome Wave and touring After graduating, the band moved to Cambridge where they spent several months working on their music before signing a deal with Infectious Music in December 2011. Their self-titled 4-track demo EP, ∆, was recorded with producer Charlie Andrew in London and featured the tracks "Breezeblocks", "Hand-Made", "Matilda", and "Tessellate". A 7" single containing "Bloodflood" and "Tessellate" was released by Loud and Quiet in October 2011. Their first 2012 release for Infectious Music was the triangle-shaped 10" "Matilda"/"Fitzpleasure". It was followed by "Breezeblocks" which preceded their first album. An Awesome Wave was also produced by Charlie Andrew and compiled at Iguana Studios, Brixton, where the band recorded tracks during the studio's spare time. Their debut album was released on 28 May 2012 in the UK, Europe, and Australia, and on 18 September 2012 in North America via Canvasback Music. The album received some favourable reviews and was described as a "captivating blend of insatiable grooves and profound poignancy". It received a score of 4.8/10 on Pitchfork. alt-J supported Wild Beasts in April 2012 and played a minor headlining tour around the United Kingdom and Ireland in October of that year. The band have featured regularly on summer festivals, including Latitude, Bestival, Reading and Leeds, T in the Park, Green Man, Pukkelpop, and Lowlands. They also did concert tour in the United States in December 2012 and performed at the Laneway Festival tour in Australia. In November 2012 the band were announced as the winners of the Mercury Prize for their album. Besides the prize-money, the band saw an increase in their profile resulting in An Awesome Wave reaching 13 in the UK album chart. The band would later describe the event as "life-changing, there was a sense of [being] imposters, that the band had somehow got this far without not being a real band, we're just guys from Leeds who muddled through it and magicked a Mercury award". The title "An Awesome Wave" was taken from the Bret Easton Ellis novel American Psycho. 2013–2016: Departure of Sainsbury and This Is All Yours On 11 January 2014, the band announced that Sainsbury had decided to leave the group, and that they remained friends. In early June 2014, alt-J announced a 2014 tour to take place in North America over October and November. The 23-day tour started in Vancouver, B.C., on 14 October and ended in Washington, D.C., on 19 November. On 9 June 2014, they announced their second album This Is All Yours, that was released on 22 September 2014. This Is All Yours went straight to Number 1 on the UK's Official Albums Chart. It received a score of 4.0/10 from Pitchfork. alt-J headlined the September 2015 edition of Boston Calling Music Festival. As a replacement for Sainsbury, Cameron Knight became a supporting member for alt-J's live shows. 2017–2020: Relaxer On 3 March 2017 alt-J began teasing their third studio album on their social media accounts with an audio clip captioned "00110011 01110111 01110111" (Binary code for "3ww"). Stereogum reported later that day that the band's third album would be titled Relaxer and was scheduled for release on 2 June 2017. On 6 March 2017 alt-J released "3WW", which features lead singer Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice, as a digital single and announced dates for the Relaxer Tour in support of the album. Three weeks later, on 29 March, they released "In Cold Blood", the second single from Relaxer. In anticipation of their third album, the band released an online video game, whose soundtrack was their single "3WW," as well as announcing in May 2017 that they would be playing a five-date UK tour at seaside venues, starting on 4 September 2017. On 24 May 2017 alt-J released "Adeline", the third single from Relaxer. The album was released shortly afterwards, on 2 June 2017. "Deadcrush", the fourth single from the album, was released on 12 July and was featured as a soundtrack in the FIFA 18 game. Fifth single "Pleader" arrived on 15 September 2017. Several tracks from Relaxer have since been remixed by a diverse array of artists. Relaxer was nominated for the 2017 Mercury Prize and received 4.5/10 on Pitchfork. On 28 September 2018 an alternative version of Relaxer was released. The album, titled Reduxer, is a "rap heavy do-over" of the previous year's record. Since 2021: The Dream On 16 September 2021, the band announced their first single since 2018, titled "U&ME", would be released 22 September 2021. The single's release coincided with the announcement of their fourth album, The Dream, which was released 11 February 2022. In popular culture Alt-J performed "Buffalo" along with Mountain Man for the 2011 f.... Discover the Joe Newman popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Joe Newman books.