Fresh from headlining and co-curating Bristol’s Simple Things Festival over the weekend, Squid today release CROWDS, their first ever live album, digitally via Warp Records. A career-spanning live document of one of art rock’s most distinctive bands, CROWDS will also be pressed on double vinyl, available to pre-order for a limited window from 9th November to 4th December. A handful of test pressings will be on sale to the first fans at the merch stand at the band’s Barbican headline show on 5th December, the show is part of Rough Trade’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
Photo Credit: Caroline Sanfran, 2024
Since emerging over a decade ago, Squid have built a reputation as one of Britain’s most unique and inventive live bands. Their early releases came out on Speedy Wunderground, a label built on the ethos of recording songs live in the studio in a single day, and that spirit has stayed with them ever since. From the start, audiences came to see the band’s virtuosic musicianship, with members swapping instruments and sharing vocals, constantly reshaping what they do. The band’s far ranging influences are perhaps best reflected in the radio shows they’ve hosted on stations like The Lot, NTS and Noods which move through decades and genres with an easy eclecticism. Every member brings different tastes, from jazz to electronic, prog, techno and beyond, and on stage those worlds collide. A lifetime spent listening to and playing across genres means every Squid set pushes each song past its limits, leaving the crowd suspended somewhere between ecstasy and delirium.
Squid on CROWDS: “Leaving to go on tour always brings some nerves, but playing music is a special way to explore the World, with an inevitable homecoming always to look forward to at the end. There’s no telling which shows will stand out and resonate with us as a band: often it’s the hometowns, sometimes somewhere in between, or where we’ve never been before.
Our 2025 tour of Cowards took us somewhere new in what we can do together: the instruments on stage, the places, the people, the new music and the older stuff. So we decided to turn these recordings into a live album, CROWDS. It’s not something we’ve done before. We’ve been playing together for just over 11 years. Our early shows in Brighton in 2015 and 2016 were for friends and friends of friends, family and teachers. Those people are often still in the audience, but they’re no longer the majority, and we feel lucky to have fans and festival crowds listening, discovering and supporting our music.
To everyone, we hope you enjoy the record.”
