British trio Alt-J will be in Australia touring music from their third album Relaxer.
Camera IconBritish trio Alt-J will be in Australia touring music from their third album Relaxer.

Alt-J relax into Australian return

Danielle McGraneAAP


Fans of experimental rock trio Alt-J may have thought the British group had split up.

After two albums and three years of touring, the band decided in 2015 it was time for a break.

"It wasn't like an official 'Alt-J are on a hiatus' kind of thing. We just chilled out really," keyboardist Gus Unger-Hamilton told AAP.

But "chilling out" can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. For Unger-Hamilton it involved the pretty stressful venture of opening a restaurant, fulfilling a lifelong dream to be a chef.

He teamed up with two Aussie guys who ran a wine bar on his street in London, opening a restaurant called Dandy, and so his downtime looked a lot different to most people's.

"When you finish a full dinner service at 11 o' clock and you've got to wash every glass, plate, fork in the whole place it's like 'Christ' but it's good to be reminded what hard work is," he said.

Occasionally, he would get incredulous looks from musicians who would recognise him, with his arms elbow-deep in washing up.

"Bands would come in and see me doing dishes and be like 'really'?" he said.

After enough time spent getting to live in their London homes, and a solo album released by drummer Thom Green, it felt like time for Alt-J to make music again.

"It gave us the hunger to get back to the studio together and work on new stuff rather than it feeling like a chore," Unger-Hamilton said.

Unger-Hamilton, Green and singer/guitarist Joe Newman wrote their third album Relaxer and threw themselves back into touring again, including a third appearance at Glastonbury this year.

The album proved as inventive and complex as anything they'd produced and involved a month and a half in the studio after its completion rehearsing and building the sound with the keyboards and the percussion.

"It takes a lot of work, a lot of programming," he said.

"We definitely put the work in but it's really paid off. Onstage the songs are going really well, translating well, coming across well and I think that work was definitely worth it."

Australian fans will be able to find out for themselves as the British trio kick off their tour Down Under this week, returning to a place that's shown a lot of love for their music.

"We love coming to Australia. The first time we played there, the reception we got we thought 'OK this might be our place' so we wish it was a little bit closer so we could come a bit more," he said.

*Alt-J Australian tour dates:

December 5 - AEC Theatre, Adelaide

December 7 - Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne

December 9 - ICC Sydney Theatre, Sydney

December 10 - Riverstage, Brisbane