Squid release their new single 'Undergrowth'

SQUID present new single UNDERGROWTH from their sophomore album O MONOLITH, out via Warp Records on 9 June. Alongside a video game inspired by the single and made by Frank Force, the band have also shared a visualiser directed by Louis Borlase, guitarist in the band, and announced their biggest North American tour to date. Full dates and tickets available from the band’s website.

Already renowned for their unerring experimentation, the new single sees SQUID continue their idiosyncratic sonic journey. The track is a heady cocktail of sounds and styles with dubbed-out bass grooves under cinematic synth chops which explode into bursts of hyper-rock guitar and frenetic bass.

Through the radical meld of textures and tones, drummer and vocalist Ollie Judge still manages to create an earworm chorus of “Ergonomic for the rest of my days / I’d rather melt away”. Themes of environmental peril, morality and the natural world are all present on Undergrowth, and further explored on the rest of O Monolith – on the lyrics of Undergrowth, Judge says:

“I really got into animism, the idea that spirits can live in inanimate objects. I was watching Twin Peaks, and there was an episode where Josie Packard’s spirit goes into a chest of drawers. So Undergrowth was written from the perspective of me being reincarnated as a bedside table in the afterlife, and how the thought of being reincarnated as an inanimate object would be dreadful. ‘This isn’t what I wanted / So many options to be disappointed’. Even though I’m in no way religious, I don’t think anyone who isn’t religious is confident enough to have never had the fleeting thought of, ‘What if there is an afterlife? What if I’m going to Hell?’.”

Introducing UNDERGROWTH the game! A bit like the bastardised love child of Super Mario and Space Invaders with an English Folklore twist. Who’s gonna get the high score? Who’s gonna defeat the monolith? Frank Force says: “Imagine the game itself as an interactive music video where gameplay and animation is synched up to the music and changes as the song progresses, moving into different phases.”

Expansive, evocative and hugely varied, O Monolith retains Squid’s restless, enigmatic spirit. It’s a reflection of the progression of a band always looking to the future. “We’re quite a musically stubborn band and, in an endearing way, it’s a stubborn record,” says Judge. And like its namesake, O MONOLITH is vast and strange, alive with endless possible interpretations of its inner mysteries.

Pre-order the album here: https://squid.ffm.to/omonolith

2023 UK & IRISH DATES

MAY

Fri 05 WREXHAM Focus Wales Festival

JUNE

Sun 18 WICKLOW Beyond The Pale Festival

JULY

Fri 21 HERTFORDSHIRE Standon Calling Festival

Sat 22 OXFORD SHIRE Truck Festival

AUGUST

Sat 05 LONDON Rally Festival

Fri 18 BRECON Green Man Festival