The Mercury Prize winning, chart-topping alt-J have shared their heartfelt new track GET BETTER, the second glimpse into their forthcoming album THE DREAM, set for release on 11 February via Infectious Music / BMG. The band have also announced the UK and Ireland dates of their 2022 World Tour.
Listen to Get Better here: https://alt-j.lnk.to/getbetterPR
Pre-order / Pre-save THE DREAM here: https://alt-j.lnk.to/thedreamPR
GET BETTER is the stirring centrepiece of THE DREAM, and one of the band’s most emotionally resonant songs to date. The band peel away the dense layers of sound for which they are known, leaving singer Joe Newman’s vocal next to a plaintive solo guitar and harmonies from bandmate Gus Unger-Hamilton.
The single arrives alongside an equally heartbreaking animated video, made by Hamburg based award-winning pixel artist Stefanie Grunwald. She entered the pixel art space in 2016 and has quickly gained recognition for her detailed animations, which caught the eye of Newman and led to the collaboration.
Going deeper into the process of creating the track, Newman says, “Get Better is the union of two songs. The first was an improvised song I sang in 2018 to my partner who was suffering from period pain. To her I sang, ‘Get better my Darcy, I know you can’. She filmed it and I kept revisiting the fragment with a plan to write more. The second was a chord structure I worked on in lockdown that focused on someone living through a bereavement. I felt a nervous heat when writing Get Better. The context of the Coronavirus pandemic lent my words a chilling weight and gave me a new sense of responsibility as a lyricist. Whilst the direct events described are fictional, I believe – or I hope – that it’s emotionally the most honest song I’ve written.”
On the experience of first hearing the demo, Newman’s bandmate Unger-Hamilton said, “When Joe first played it to me, I didn’t just get a bit tearful, I broke down. A big, big cry. A cry of the year.”
U&ME was the band’s first new music since their acclaimed third album RELAXER in 2017. At the time, the band also shared details of the North American leg of their 2022 World Tour which will see them play arenas across the USA and Canada, and the band have now announced the UK and Ireland dates for the World Tour, as follows:
MAY 2022
Sat 07 GLASGOW Barrowland
Mon 09 LEEDS O2 Academy
Fri 13 MANCHESTER O2 Apollo
Wed 18 LONDON O2 Brixton Academy
Sun 22 DUBLIN Olympia Theatre
Wed 25 BELFAST Telegraph Building
Fri 27 BIRMINGHAM O2 Academy
There will be an exclusive ticket presale open to those who have preordered THE DREAM from the official album store. The presale will run from Wednesday 10 November at 9.00am GMT until the general sale begins on Friday 12 November at 9.00am GMT. If fans have already preordered the album from the official store, they will already be eligible for the presale. General sale will be available from: https://www.altjband.com/#tour
