In the time before cellphones and text messaging, gchat and Airtime, it’s not that we had less to say, there were just less ways to say it. We couldn’t overshare if we wanted to. When you think about it, penpals are the original Facebook. A way to connect with people you have known your whole life, or maybe met just once, but you want to get to know better. It’s not so much the words that are meant to be looked at, it’s what’s in between the lines that makes all the difference. That was just the result when Thom from Alt-J shared with us some insight into the band, their music, and his thoughts on the world today in a Yours Truly style penpal correspondence.
Here’s how it went down, YT sent some questions and Alt-J sent back a letter with some answers. Enjoy!
YT’s questions
So i think one of the defining aspects of Alt-j, is (ironically) the fact that it’s incredibly difficult to define your sound. So if you had to describe Alt-j’s sound as a food or dish, what would you pick and why?
Can you talk about your sound a bit and how it pulls from just about everywhere?
When it comes to genres, people have tried to put you guys in pretty much every genre imaginable. What do you think of music genres? Do you think genres are becoming less important, or they are just being redefined?
Most outlandish description of Alt-j’s music you’ve seen so far?
What does it feel like to be compared to Radiohead?
Stay tuned for Part. 2 of yt’s penpal correspondence with Alt-J and in the meantime check out their latest music video “Tesselate”
