SPILL NEW MUSIC: ALT-J’S JOE NEWMAN, AKA JJEROME87, RELEASES NEW TRACK “MR ALLIGATOR” | DEBUT ALBUM ‘THE CANYON’ OUT JUNE 26

ALT-J’S JOE NEWMAN, AKA JJEROME87, RELEASES NEW TRACK “MR ALLIGATOR” | DEBUT ALBUM THE CANYON OUT JUNE 26

VIRGIN MUSIC GROUP

Offering a final preview of his solo debut album The Canyon, JJerome87 (alt-J frontman Joe Newman) today shares new single “Mr Alligator”. Serving as the album’s blues-soaked opening track, the song is built around the sounds of a double dutch group, using field recordings collected by Joe himself. “Mr Alligator” acts as a striking introduction to an album rich with fantastical vignettes and cinematic storytelling, where everyday moments are transformed into scenes worthy of Hollywood.

Speaking about the song, JJerome87 shares “The path of a Preacher. The rise of a Predator. ‘Mr Alligator’ is the story of a grifter with a penchant for coercive control, violence and a soulless indifference towards their fellow man.”

The single is accompanied by an official visualizer showcasing the work of Irish illustrator Sally Dunne, who also created the album artwork. Filmed in a single take, the visualizer captures Dunne in the process of inking a new illustration inspired by the track.

“Mr Alligator” features on the forthcoming debut solo album from the British songwriter and musician, frontman of the critically acclaimed GRAMMY nominated, Mercury Prize and Ivor Novello-winning band alt-J. Titled The Canyon, the album is scheduled for release on 26 June via Mushroom Music and Virgin Music Group.

Recorded in Los Angeles with producer Carlos de la Garza, the album also features a handpicked group of the city’s top session musicians alongside a trio of female backing vocalists. It includes the previously released singles ‘Brush Me Like A Horse’ and ‘Track and Field’.

With alt-J – who, across four albums, have topped the UK charts and entered the Billboard Top Five, earning multiple Grammy and Brit nominations and amassing billions of streams – Newman became part of one of the past decade’s most successful bands on both sides of the Atlantic. Where the specific alchemy of alt-J has always been rooted in the unlikely confluence of three different tastes, Newman’s current project is an exercise in showing new sides of himself – digging back to the influences that have energised him since his childhood, and weaving them into experiences taken from the most transformative time in his life to date.

“Traditionally after finishing an album, I’m creatively a bit depleted so I’ll take a break. But after [2022’s] ‘The Dream’ I didn’t stop writing, and I started formulating a lot of ideas that were very personal: things I was experiencing as a first time dad, and the core memories of my partner giving birth,” Newman explains. “I was beginning to realise this might be a good time for me to take a leap of faith and write something outside the circle of alt-J.”

Newman and his partner’s daughter was born in 2021. It’s her who is peeking over the corner of the musician’s shoulder in the artwork for The Canyon – rendered by the aforementioned artist Sally Dunne, and full of clues as to what’s inside. There’s the white house in the corner where Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote the script for Good Will Hunting – a local landmark near the studio where the album was recorded. There are the coyotes that Newman encountered on a 5am drive one morning. The Canyon itself is a nod to one of the regular haunts that they’d visit during recording, Echo Park’s famous Canyon Coffee.

Across The Canyon, Newman weaves strange and sublime stories, turning everyday moments into something cinematic and unforgettable. The record unfolds like a collection of musical short stories — brief, vivid snapshots where fact and fiction blur. It’s an intimate, adventurous album from a songwriter stepping confidently into a new chapter of his life, with his daughter by his side and the coyotes of Echo Park keeping watch over the musical landscape he’s created.

With his London headline show at Bush Hall now sold out — featuring support from Imogen and the Knife — JJerome87has announced his first New York headline show at the iconic Bowery Ballroom on October 3.

JJerome87
The Canyon
(Virgin Music Group)
Release Date: June 26, 2026

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