"3WW" is the latest track from English indie rock band ∆ (alt-J), offering a glimpse of their upcoming third album Relaxer (out June 9). It presents a decidedly unusual sonic take on the familiar topic of love, beginning with gentle acoustic instrumentation that builds up into a moving and meditation amalgamation of electronic instrumentation, strings, multiple guitar lines and choir chants.
The song begins with hints at a mythic past, as Gus Unger-Hamilton sings of a 'wayward lad', who 'Stepped out one morning/ The ground to be his bed/ The sky his awning'. Joe Newman takes on vocal duties for the second verse, bringing the song into the present:
'Neon, neon, neonA blue neon lamp in a midnight country fieldCan't surround so you lean on, lean onSo much your heart's become fond of this'
Lyrics: Genius
Newman and Unger-Hamilton join forces on the song's chorus, which introduces the track's thesis statement on how romanticism can be destructive, and how a new language for love is needed to recover its redemptive possibilities:
'Oh, these three worn wordsOh, let me whisper like the rubbing handsOf tourists in VeronaI just want to love you in my own language'
The language of love and rubbing hands lead to some symbolic coital action in the third verse, as the 'wayward lad' undertakes his sexual awakening with not one, but two young women from the Yorkshire coast:
'Well, that smell of sexGood like burning woodThe wayward lad laid claimTo two thirsty girls from HornseaWho left a note when morning came'
Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell offers a refreshing counter-perspective to all this plaintive hope and longing, evoking Greek sirens as she coyly hints that love and lust can just be modes of play and ways of killing time in the song's bridge:
'Girls from the pool say "Hi" (hi)The road erodes at five feet per yearAlong England's east coastlineWas this your first time?Love is just a button we pressedLast night by the campfire'
The track evocatively juxtaposes the abstract and the everyday, coming across as being both abstract and erotic. It's an arresting dialogue between the timeless romantic and the postmodern sceptic, leaving the listener with an open-ended hope that new (sonic and romantic) possibilities lie ahead.
