Squid present new single, ‘Undergrowth’, from their sophomore album, ‘O Monolith’, out June 9th on Warp Records, alongside a video game inspired by ‘Undergrowth’ made by Frank Force.
Already renowned for their unerring experimentation, new single ‘Undergrowth’ 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 brass.
Through the radical meld of textures and tones, drummer and vocalist Ollie Judge still manages to create an earworm chorus: “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’ - Judge says on ‘Undergrowth’s’ lyrics: “I really got into animism, the idea that spirits can live in inanimate objects. I was watching Twin Peaks, and there was the 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 not have had the fleeting thought of ‘Fuck, what if there is an afterlife? What if I’m going to Hell?’”
With the launch of their new single, Squid is also introducing: ‘Undergrowth’, the game! A bit like the bastardized 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 adds: “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
PLAY THE “UNDERGROWTH” GAME HERE
Expansive, evocative and hugely varied, the new album ‘O Monolith’ retains Squid’s restless, enigmatic spirit. It’s a reflection of the outsized 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. Like its namesake, O Monolith is vast and strange; alive with endless possible interpretations of its inner mysteries.
‘O Monolith’ will be available June 9th. For now, listen to Squid’s new single ‘Undergrowth’ HERE.