"In Cold Blood" is a song by British

indie rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produc ...

band alt-J. It is the second track and second single from their third studio album, ''

Relaxer A relaxer is a type of lotion or cream generally used by people with tight curls or very curly hair which makes hair easier to hair straightening, straighten by chemically "relaxing" the natural curls. The active agent is usually a strong alkali, a ...

'', and was released as a digital single on 29 March 2017 by

Infectious Music Infectious Music is an independent record label owned by BMG, whose bands have included Alt-J, Ash and The Subways. History Infectious Music was established in 1993 as Infectious Records by former Zerra One drummer Korda Marshall after lea ...

and Atlantic Records. The song was written by Joe Newman, Gus Unger-Hamilton, and Thom Sonny Green and produced by

Charlie Andrew Charles Andrew, (born 1980) is a British record producer, mixer and songwriter. He is best known for his work with indie band Alt-J. In 2013 he was awarded 'Breakthrough Producer of the Year' by his peers at Music Producers Guild awards, in ...

. It features a brass section recorded at Abbey Road Studios in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and a

Casiotone Casiotone was a series of home electronic keyboards made by Casio in the early 1980s. Casio promoted the Casiotone 201 (CT-201) as "the first electronic keyboard with full-size keys that anyone could afford". The name "Casiotone" disappeared from ...

the band purchased for £1.05 on

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...

. The song's title is a reference to the novel of the same name by American novelist

Truman Capote Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, ...

. The song's composition dates back to when the band started during their studies at the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

Composition and lyrics

In an interview with

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

, the band said: The song starts with the eight digit

binary Binary may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1) * Binary function, a function that takes two arguments * Binary operation, a mathematical operation that ta ...

phrase: "zero one one one zero zero one one" (01110011), which is 163 (

octal The octal numeral system, or oct for short, is the base-8 number system, and uses the digits 0 to 7. This is to say that 10octal represents eight and 100octal represents sixty-four. However, English, like most languages, uses a base-10 number ...

), 115 ( decimal), and 73 ( hex), which translates to a lowercase "s" under the ASCII system. It is unclear what this means, although the band labeled a teaser for the song " 3WW" with the binary ASCII encoding “00110011 01110111 01110111”. If extended to use all of the numbers in the line we get the number 01110011(cry)0 (and I'm Hearing) 111 which is 1847 - the year that

Samuel Colt Samuel Colt (; July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor, industrialist, and businessman who established Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (now Colt's Manufacturing Company) and made the mass production of ...

sold his patented revolvers to the Texas rangers in the war against Mexico.

Music video

The music video for the song was released on 9 May 2017. It was directed by Casper Balslev, who had previously directed videos for

Marina and the Diamonds Marina Lambrini Diamandis (; el, Μαρίνα-Λαμπρινή Διαμάντη; born 10 October 1985), known mononymously as Marina (often stylised in all caps), and previously by the stage name Marina and the Diamonds, is a Welsh singer and ...

and

MØ Karen Marie Aagaard Ørsted Andersen (; born 13 August 1988), known professionally as MØ (), is a Danish singer and songwriter. She signed a recording contract with Sony Music Entertainment in 2012, releasing her debut extended play, ''Bikini ...

. The video is narrated by Iggy Pop, frontman of

The Stooges The Stooges, originally billed as the Psychedelic Stooges, also known as Iggy and the Stooges, was an American rock band formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967 by singer Iggy Pop, guitarist Ron Asheton, drummer Scott Asheton, and bassist Da ...

Performances

On 18 April 2017, alt-J performed "In Cold Blood" on the 656th episode of ''

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon ''The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jimmy Fallon that airs on NBC. The show premiered on February 17, 2014, and is produced by Broadway Video and Universal Television. It is the seventh incar ...

''. The band performed the song with a backing horn section and with Questlove, the drummer of Jimmy Fallon's house band The Roots. On 19 May 2017, alt-J performed "In Cold Blood" on the sixth episode of the fiftieth series of '' Later... with Jools Holland''. On 5 June 2017, alt-J performed "In Cold Blood" on '' Conan''. The band also performed "In Cold Blood" for their second NPR tiny desk concert in an acoustic, string accompanied medley. In Cold Blood is also the ending theme for the Netflix anime series ''

Ingress Ingress may refer to: Science and technology * Ingress (signal leakage), the passage of an outside signal into a coaxial cable * Ingress filtering, a computer network packet filtering technique * Ingress protection rating, a protection level that ...

.''

Critical reception

"In Cold Blood" received favorable reviews from contemporary music critics. Robin Murray of '' Clash'' called it "both straight-forwardly melodic and fascinatingly complex, the interweaving vocals underpinned by bleeping electronics and flashes of brass."

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from Tidal

alt-J

*Joe Newman – guitar, vocals, bass guitar *Gus Unger-Hamilton – keyboards, vocals *

Thom Sonny Green Thomas Stuart Green (born November 5, 1985), known professionally as Thom Sonny Green, is an English drummer and electronic music producer. Green attended Leeds University, where he met the musicians with whom he would found the band Alt-J ...

– drums, percussion

Additional musicians

*Joe Auckland – trumpet *Martin Williams – tenor saxophone *Trevor Mires – trombone *Mike Kearsey – trombone *Adrien Hallowel – trombone

Technical

*Charlie Andrew – production, mixing, programming *Brett Cox – engineering *Jay Pocknell - engineering *Stefano Civetta – assistant engineering *Paul Pritchard – assistant engineering *Graeme Baldwin – assistant engineering *Dick Beetham – mastering

Artwork and design

Osamu Sato is a Japanese digital artist, photographer, and composer. His first work was the ambient music album "Objectless", which released in 1983. His first work in the video game industry The video game industry encompasses the development, ma ...

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

External links

* {{authority control 2017 singles Alt-J songs 2017 songs Infectious Music singles Atlantic Records singles Songs written by Thom Sonny Green