Album: This Is All Yours, released 2014 Ah, alt-J. Mercury Prize winners, Leeds University alumni and the poster boys for the more experimental side of indie pop. So how does the capital of one of the most beautiful regions of Japan fit into the equation? Just as their debut An Awesome Wave was permeated by short interludes focusing on a specific instrument, the bands sophomore effort This Is All Yours notably features a trilogy of tracks centring on the city of Nara, chronicling the narrators arrival, their time in the city itself and the departure, which closes the album. But what is it about Nara that was so appealing to the Leeds collective? It turns out the city is home to a large deer population which roam freely, due to their protected status as heavenly animals; according to ancient history, a mythological god arrived in Nara on a white deer to guard the newly built capital of Japan during the Nara period (710-794 AD). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtmrYisoxXA The band decided to use the deer as a metaphor for as an advocate for gay marriage; people should be allowed to be as free as the deer of Nara, going about their ways without having anyone tell them what to do. Due to the amount of material they had, the band decided to capture the piece over three tracks. This only adds to the sense of Nara representing an immersive journey; it doesnt exactly represent the whole of the city, but its an interesting interpretation.
English graduate from the South East, writing my way through my twenties. Also a YouTube partner, playing games and filming vlogs under "ZeppelinG1993." Middle name Zeppelin (after the band, not the blimp), so destined to be a music lover.
