The Dream

Yes, The Dream [Digital Deluxe] was available for a very limited time on the band’s web store. This version includes an unreleased demo called “Oceans Are Forming”, a remix by their former bandmate Gwil, and some stripped session versions of songs on the album.

It wasn’t the pandemic that influenced this album: the conditions it created did. In some ways, it was tragic; in others, it was incredibly liberating. For the first time [in our career], we worked without a proper deadline: all we created could be adjusted calmly, and the song-writing took benefit from that, too. And I think this sense of freedom is also amplified through the final version of the project. Many songs were born from jams and sound-checks [we made] around the world: we record everything, and then we listen to it again. The pandemic offered us the opportunity to spend more time on each track.

It’s a record that sees a co-existence between new instruments, Elvis [Presley], The Beatles, the soundtracks of some films, opera, Philadelphia’s musical scene in the ‘60s, but at the same time, you know it’s an alt-J project. And I think this is possible thanks to Joe [Newman]’s voice, which is the fil rouge that connects all of our albums together. We could overcome restrictions and time by traveling back mentally, with a more mature state of mind, to our college years, when we would lock ourselves in a room to play, isolated from everything and everyone. […] Our biggest achievement is to have an undefined sound: surely The Dream has vintage atmospheres, and our desire to go beyond the limits led us to a sort of psychedelia.

– Gus Unger-Hamilton, via Rockol.it.

Yes, Apple Music features animated artwork for this release.