If you thought “Left Hand Free”, the latest taste of Alt-J’s forthcoming This Is All Yours, sounded remarkably unlike the band, you win today’s No Prize. In an interview with The Guardian (via Faster Louder), the Mercury Prize-winning outfit called the track “the least Alt-J song ever.” Apparently, they spat out the song in 20 minutes flat only after their American label (Atlantic) said “Hunger of the Pine” wasn’t a “big single.”
Things started with a “joke riff” guitarist/vocalist Joe Newman would noodle with in practice. From there, Thom Green “tried to make the drums as clichéd as possible,” stating that “there’s none of my personality in it.” Keyboardist Gus Unger-Hamilton remarked, “I’m doing some kind of organ solo. I don’t know where ‘baby’ came from.”
Newman also admits the lyrics are rather rubbish (“I say, ‘Gee whizz,’ which I’m not sure is a phrase I’ve ever uttered before”), but he does see the song connecting with a certain demographic. “I can imagine it appealing to American truckers with ‘Good Riddance To Bin Laden’ stickers!”
Take a listen to “Left Hand Free” below.
