An Awesome Wave

The band alt-J’s debut album, An Awesome Wave, is a musically beautiful representation of European music at that time combined with the unique sound of the growing indie and alternative music genres. Probably stemming from this album, alt-J has a reputation of making scatter-brained music that is not always received positively by listeners. However, each song on the album makes for easy and entertaining listening and regardless of the variety from one song to the other, they still manage to all meet in the middle for a matching aura on the album. Another characteristic of the album that I found very interesting is the cover art. For a little background information, alt-J is the computer key shortcut for delta. While facing a deadline for this album, the band went to google images to find some album art that related to their symbol/logo, the delta. The image on this album cover is the world's largest delta, located on the border of India and Bangladesh. The psychedelic appearance of the delta comes from overlapping three different images taken at different times over the same area. The keyboard player loved the idea of this psychedelic cover art because it was fitting to the style of music they were producing and when looking at the album cover, it was hard for most people to figure out what it actually is. This matched how they viewed their ‘hard-to-pin-down’ abstract style of music.

 The lead off on the album is “Intro”, a majority instrumental track that gets heavy into the drums and guitar chords right off the bat. One lyric from this song goes on about a ‘nod to the canon’ and summarises the idea of this song that it is a ‘nod’ or an acknowledgment of all the musical influence we encounter in our lives. “Tessellate” is about trying to get over a girl by meeting a new one and ‘tessellating’ with her. Leading off with a morbid-esque piano intro that goes into some hard drumbeats, this song stood out to me because of the story and how well it cooperates with the sounds. The singer then goes on to say, ‘triangles are my favourite shape, three points where two lines meet’, talking about the conflicting love triangle he finds himself in as he tries to forget the first girl. My two favourite songs on the album, and easily my favourites by alt-J are “Breezeblocks” and “Ms.” “Breezeblocks” is actually based off of the children's book ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ and plays a part in why I enjoy the song so much; this was a consistent bedtime read when I was growing up and when the movie adaptation came out, really, traumatised younger me. The main premise of “Breezeblocks” is loving someone so much that you want to hurt them, ‘Please don’t go, I'll eat you whole. I love you so.’ Similar to the book and the movie, this song starts off nice and soft, slow, but builds to a heavy and percussive chorus that repeats the same thoughts over and over, like getting stuck in the climax of your emotions. This is interesting to hear because it creates the same sensation, I feel watching the movie as well. “Ms” is one of my personal favourites because it is an easy listen and presents a beautiful collaboration of the singer harmonising with a warm guitar and drum pairing. This song is about not wanting a relationship to end or losing feelings for this person in your life but realising you must let go of these feelings you once had.

Overall, this has been and will continue to be music I have on my daily listening mixes. The storytelling alt-Jbrings to their discography is so refreshing and has made me develop an appreciation for musicians that fight against the mould of typical song writing. I relate to many themes over the course of the album An Awesome Wave, which in my opinion gives listeners a deeper understanding and admiration for the artistry that was put in. It is interesting how the tempo of the songs as the album goes on, moves like a wave; starts calm but is still moving, increases into a heavy, energetic rise that may begin around “Breezeblocks”, a peak of energy at “Fitzpleasure” and then finds itself sinking lower again back to sea level. I choose to give alt-J the benefit of the doubt and believe they built this musical tide on purpose for their magical debut album, An Awesome Wave.