Alt-J: On surviving the Mercury Prize 'curse' and going hip-hop in new album

awkward moment has arisen in Hot Press’s conversation with alternative avant-gardists Alt-J. The embarrassment flows from the fact that we are attempting to delicately explain that the trio’s latest album, Reduxer, is our favourite of theirs’ to date.

Why so self-conscious? Because, as they freely admit, they didn’t necessarily have a huge amount to do with the nitty gritty of the LP. This is Alt-J with a great deal of the Alt-J removed at source. How do you tell them you love it to pieces, without implying everything else they’ve done is less essential by comparison?

In fact, there is a good chance the band are in agreement. Reduxer is what happens when a critically-acclaimed guitar and electronica ensemble hands their latest collection over to some of the world’s most acclaimed rap artists and lets them have at it.

From Rejjie Snow’s woozed-up storytelling to Pusha T rhyming about being a drug dealer (really, Pusha? we had no idea), the record is a left field triumph – and Alt- J know it. So no, the fact they are guests at their own party probably isn’t a source of frustration or resentment.

“Aside from having the original idea and thinking of a few artists to collaborate with, we didn’t have to do a whole lot of work,” laughs guitarist and keyboard player Gus Unger-Hamilton. “We are always grateful to our team. But our thanks to them for this one couldn’t be more heartfelt or deserved.”

They were especially pleased with Drumcondra native Snow’s work on ‘Hit Me Like That Snare’, which he transforms into a disembodied tone-poem. Alt-J had never actually heard of Snow when their label put his name forward as one of the rappers who might be open to a re-configuring songs from their 2017 Relaxer album. Eager to learn more, Unger-Hamilton got onto one of his pals in Dublin.

“The remit was that we wanted the label to introduce us to some of the new stuff by emerging artists. With Rejjie, after he was put forward I texted my friend Sean in Dublin. ‘Have you heard of Rejjie Snow?’ Sean was on a night out with his mate who knew about Rejjie. She left this very excited voice memo – ‘he’s amazing’. So it was like, ‘Okay, he’s going to be a good guy to work with if drunk people are waxing lyrical about him.’”

The real big “get” is Pusha T, whose own Daytona album has a claim to be one of the year’s most essential. Fortunately for Alt-J, they were able to nail him down for a collaboration, ‘In Cold Blood’, before he became the-rapper-formerly-known-as-Kanye-West’s favourite new artist and quickly ascended to the A-list.

“We were really lucky,” says Unger-Hamilton. “He was someone we wanted to work with. Pusha T was definitely a priority from the start. We got the track back and then suddenly he was the hottest property in hip hop. So we were very fortunate.”

As anyone who has waited around to interview a rapper will tell you, hop hip moves to its own ebb and flow. Coming from the world of indie rock, and given hip hop’s penchant for doing things on such highly individualistic terms, did Alt J have to make any adjustments in terms of managing their expectations?

“The biggest difficulty was that we were working with a producer and a hip hop artist,” says Unger-Hamilton. “So each track involved a minimum of two people – plus us, and our people, and their people. That was all difficult. But I wouldn’t say it was any more difficult than working with people from any other genre.”

This brings us to the true confessions segment of the interview. Given their love for hip hop, have the band ever – when the studio doors were shut and absolutely nobody was listening – attempted a hip hop bar or two of their own?

“We’ve never experimented all out with that,” says Unger-Hamilton. “Our song ‘Deadcrush’ does have hip hop elements in terms of the music. That’s actually where the idea for the new record came from. We were in the studio writing it and said to ourselves, ‘This would be really good with a bit of rapping on it.’”

Alt-J, who formed at university in Leeds, are one of indie-pop’s most engaging anomalies. They have remained committed across their three studio LPs (and the new remix collection) to following the path less trodden. Yet the more they embrace their avant-garde side, the greater their popularity. They were uncontroversial winners of the 2012 Mercury Prize for their debut, An Awesome Wave, and spent last summer playing to arena-size venues across the US. It’s almost as if the weirder they wax, the more we love them for it.

“It is absolutely definitely a source of confusion for us,” says Unger-Hamilton. “I don’t really have a good explanation. Maybe our music is quite varied – perhaps there is something for everyone in there. Otherwise, I really don’t know.”

Unger-Hamilton has to go in a minute. The Mercury Music Prize takes place later in the evening – when Wolf Alice will be deserved winners – and he’s due to participate in a BBC Six Music panel discussion on the award (he’s in the dark as to the other guests). It must be a source of relief and pride that Alt-J are one of those to wriggle free of the so-called Mercury curse?

“We were associated with that award and have gone on to have a meaningful career,” he says. “That’s really nice. We’re very grateful for that. We’re one of the lucky ones.”

Reduxer is out now. Alt-J play the Olympia, Dublin from October 15-17.