Opening to the sound of Mellotron flutes and vocals as well as whirling synthesizers, we are led to a narration by a text-to-speech voice (Charles UK) talking about an “altered future.” In this world we are without death and the human need for rest, though it’s increasingly black—digital black. “Welcome To An Altered Future” welcomes us to the third and final story of Murder of the Universe, (released June 23rd, 2017) entitled “Han-Tyumi and the Murder of The Muder of the Universe.” Stu explained the story like this. “…the third chapter is ‘Han-Tyumi and The Murder of the Universe’…I don’t know, I’ve been reading a lot of things lately. Some people say, a lot of people say that humanity’s greatest threat may be, at this point in time, A.I.” The song operates as an intro, even being called that during the album’s production.
Like it does on the album, “Welcome to the Altered Future” opens up Jason Galea’s music video for “Han-Tyumi and the Murder of the Universe.” Its segment of the video shows red LCD text above a bleak, brown Earth.
The first known performance of the song was on 2017-09-23 during the Audiotree Music Festival in Kalamazoo. The song would be played throughout the rest of 2017 at the start of their shows before spiraling into a medley of Murder of the Universe material: “Welcome To An Altered Future” > “Digital Black” > “Han Tyumi, the Confused Cyborg” > “The Lord of Lightning” > “Cellophane.” The song continued to be played into 2018 where it would be pushed back to the beginning of their second sets alongside the medley. However it would fall off setlists completely on 2018-03-16 and has not been played since, even though the band has played the rest of the suite.