About
Alt-J (stylised as alt-J, real name Δ) are an English indie rock band formed in 2007 in Leeds, by Joe Newman (guitar/lead vocals), Thom Sonny Green (drums), Gus Unger-Hamilton (keyboards/vocals) and Gwilym Sainsbury (guitar/bass).
Their debut album An Awesome Wave was released in May 2012 in Europe, and in September 2012 in the United States, and won the 2012 British Mercury Prize. Sainsbury left the band in early 2014. Their second album, This Is All Yours, was released on 22 September 2014 and went straight to UK number one. As a replacement for Sainsbury, Cameron Knight became a supporting member for alt-J's live shows, playing guitar, bass and sampler. In 2017, the band released their third studio album, Relaxer, and are currently playing as a trio.
Name
The band's actual name is the triangle-shaped symbol Δ (the capital Greek letter delta). The band often makes references to triangles (for example, the song Tesselate mentions "triangles are my favourite shape", and they make triangle symbols with their fingers during concerts), which they say is just due to it being a visually appealing shape.
"Alt-J" comes from the key sequence used to generate the symbol Δ on an Apple Mac computer: Alt+J.
The cover art of the band's debut album An Awesome Wave shows an overhead view of the largest river delta in the world, where the Ganges River meets the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh.
Alt-J were previously known as "Daljit Dhaliwal" and then "Films", but were later forced to change to "alt-J" because an American band called "The Films" already existed.