TRACK REVIEW: Squid - Boy Racers — Music Musings & Such

TRACK REVIEW:

Squid

PHOTO CREDIT: Ashley Bourne for CRACK

Boy Racers

9.6/10

The track, Boy Racers, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQsyUwziy4Y

GENRE:

Post-Punk

ORIGIN:

Brighton, U.K.

The album, Bright Green Field, is available via:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/squid/bright-green-field

RELEASE DATE:

7th May, 2021

LABEL:

Warp

PRODUCER:

Dan Carey

TRACKLIST:

Resolution Square

G.S.K.

Narrator (ft. Martha Skye Murphy)

Boy Racers

Paddling

Documentary Filmmaker

2010

The Flyove

Peel St.

Global Groove

Pamphlets

__________

THIS review is all about...

one of Britain’s hottest and most exciting new bands. Hailing from Brighton, Squid have just released their debut album, Bright Green Field. I am going to work my way forward to a review of one of the songs from the album. I want to first look at the band’s history. Including their formation and the attention at their feet, there is quite a bit to cover. I think that it is important to look at the start of Squid and how they came together. When they spoke to DIY in 2019 (when their single, Houseplants, came out), we discovered more about their roots – and how their music mixes the manic and playful:

“Today, we find the Brighton quintet – completed by vocalist and guitarist Louis Borlase, guitarist Anton Pearson, keyboardist Arthur Leadbetter and bassist Laurie Nankivell - in a Wetherspoons just down the road from London’s fear-inducing US Visa office. It’s a Monday morning (don’t worry, they’re on the coffees for now) and they’ve all just had their passports stamped, ready to go and instil exactly the same sense of excitement over at SXSW. They might only be a couple of years into life as a band, but the momentum behind Squid over the last six months speaks for itself; unusual and idiosyncratic, theirs is an infectious sonic viewpoint that’s pricking up more ears by the day.

Even Squid's beginnings are typically upside down. Meeting at uni in Sussex, the band members had been vaguely making bedroom, laptop music when Anton noticed an ad for a "slightly weird place" looking for someone to start a young person's jazz night. "So we had to write loads of music to play this gig at the jazz bar," explains Ollie. "We booked the space first and then had to write a set," nods Anton. Soon bored of this traditional set up ("It was like, are we really just confined to always having to play the piano?! Fuck this," recalls Louis), the five pals started branching out to other venues and watched their output broaden in tandem. "There wasn't much cohesion, but it was something to do," shrugs Ollie.

Obvious cohesion, you sense, isn't really Squid's primary focus; ask what's on their collective record players, and they'll cite influences ranging from '80s English eccentrics XTC to German kraut favourites NEU! and minimalist composer Steve Reich. "Arthur's so obsessed with Steve Reich; he's got a new app called the clapping game," begins Louis. "I strongly, strongly recommend the Clapping Music app - available on iPhone and Android," informs Arthur, very seriously. "If you get the highest score on the hard level, then you get to perform Steve Reich's 'Clapping Music' with the London Symphony Orchestra." "He's been really annoying people on trains, but you're having fun – that's all that matters," grins Louis to his bandmate.

But though their interests may land on the more technical end of the muso spectrum, Squid's own output rings with a sense of playfulness, fun and more than a little unhinged mania. "Every song that we've written in the past year has been written in about three hours," explains Ollie. "They come from that slightly pressured way of writing and it gives them energy." Take just-released new single 'Houseplants' for example. Bursting out of the traps with an immediate, propulsive riff, it bobs along merrily before some discordant brass kicks in and then the whole thing temporarily collapses in a vortex as Ollie repeatedly wails the track's title. Picking up frenetic pace over its four minutes, it's a wild trip of paranoia shot through with a glint in its eye. "We just finished uni two years ago and now all of our friends are getting career jobs, so it's a bit of a comment on that," notes Ollie, "but I don't ever think out a whole story. The words are just another instrument. I've got a book with loads of phrases written down." "A phrase book, you might say?" jokes Laurie. "Dos cervezas por favor!" calls out Louis”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Holly Whittaker

There is a fun and quick interview that I want to bring in that gives us more a little more insight into the band. It is from a different DIY interview that was conducted back in 2018 – they released their debut E.P., LINO, the year before:

“Describe your music to us in the form of a Tinder bio.

8 minute songs and a stamina to match.

What’s your earliest musical memory?

Anton: The first memory of us working together to make music was Ollie and I awkwardly meeting for the first time in Louis’ bedroom in Kemptown to mess about with some instruments and laptops.

Ollie: You were very grumpy Anton, not a good first impression.

Louis: I was disappointed and couldn’t envisage a second hangout.

Anton: Arthur and I were also in a funk covers band around the same time. It wasn’t until we played our first gig as a four a few months later that we realised it was the sort of thing we wanted to keep doing together. We knew there was a lot of development needed musically to make something our own but luckily the lovely Laurie joined us a year after and steered us with his trumpet.)

Who were some artists that inspired you when you were just starting out (and why)?

Anton: When we were first collaborating we all in love with a lot of German bands like NEU!, Can etc. I remember us listening to a lot of Esbjorn Svensson and ECM type stuff along with a bunch of ‘ambient’ and post-rock artists, really just a load of instrumental stuff too.

Louis: Unintentionally I think, we started taking more from the current music around us and putting it into our own writing. This seemed to give our set a much higher energy which felt really good - or maybe it’s just that we started standing up on stage. Right now we’re especially loving Baxter Dury, Black Midi, DUDS, Tirzah.

You’re based in Brighton and London - do you feel like there are strong scenes in the cities at the moment? Are there other artists breaking through at the same time that you take inspiration from?

Totally! Seems like London is producing a new hot band every minute. It’s just cool to be on the fringes of exciting and diverse musical goings on in London. It is a big city but all these bands operate in a very inclusive way which is really great, and you’ll see a lot of the same faces whether you’re South or North of the river. In terms of Brighton, it seems like everyone has flown the nest somewhat, but there was always lots going on when we all lived there.

Bands like The Glugg, Leatherhead, Sealings, The Snivellers, Space Cowboys and Garden Centre (I’m sure I’m missing more) were always supportive of whatever was going on and are all such firmly grounded and nice people. We’re also really looking forward to the new Porridge Radio album. It’s being recorded with MJ from Hookworms and I’ve heard the working title is ‘Daddy’”.

Let’s move this on and bring it a little more up-to-date. I think that one reason why Squid have harnessed this incredible sound and confidence is their association with producer Dan Carey. The band are signed to Warp now – which I shall touch on soon -, but they met Carey before he produced their debut album. This 2010 interview with CRACK explains more:

“Having worked exclusively with Speedy Wunderground for the past two years, Squid clearly have a special relationship with Carey. I wonder whether that’s because they think Carey is the only producer versatile enough to wrangle their scattergun ideas into some coherent shape. “I don’t think we really know that yet,” Louis replies. “But he has these Speedy Wunderground rules – like, record it in one take, with the lights off, with no lunch break – that definitely makes us work in a specific way.”

“We turn the lights off and have lasers on,” Anton expands, “and sometimes they go in your eyes and it’s hard to concentrate. So I think we haven’t always abided to every rule.” Arthur takes over: “You need someone who allows you to feel comfortable pushing your own boundaries, and who can help you create a new vision of what’s in your head. That’s what I think a good producer does, and that’s what Dan does. For that moment you’re in the studio, he’s the sixth member of the band”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins for Loud and Quiet

I want to keep things on Dan Carey for a bit, as the band have a lot of praise and respect for him. Although Squid have innate talent and ability, I think that Carey has helped them find their sound and capitalise on that. The band spoke with Loud and Quiet in 2019 about what Carey brings to their music:

“Funnily enough, I was reading Loud And Quiet a while back and I saw that Lottie and Rosy from Goat Girl did that ‘Bands Buy Records’ video thing. They were talking about recording their album with this guy Dan Carey so I Googled him and this Quietus interview came up with all this stuff about Speedy Wunderground. It just sounded like everything we were looking for so I sent him an email with ‘Changeover Terrestrial Blues’ attached. Obviously didn’t expect to hear anything back. A couple of days later I got a two sentence reply saying, ‘Sounds cool, could be recorded better. When you playing next?’ I couldn’t believe it. I told him we were playing at Off The Cuff and he just said, ‘Cool, I’ll be there. Put me on guest list.’” And that was it. Squid did what Carey dotingly calls a ‘Speedy’ and it seems they couldn’t be happier with the outcome. “In the studio, he doesn’t use a lot of words,” explains Ledbetter. “He does lots of listening and occasionally offers slight direction where he steers you and that’s when he catches it. He’ll say something like, ‘maybe just try this for a little bit,’ and then before we even feel like we’ve started back over again, he just says, ‘we’re done.’”

“Our trajectory would not be anywhere without Dan Carey,” says Judge, “and the fact that he took a punt on some unknown band with 500 likes on Facebook…”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Matilda Hill-Jenkins for Loud and Quiet

The final Dan Carey-related interview that I want to bring in is from DORK. Ahead of the release of Bright Green Field, Squid discussed Carey’s working methods and how there is this sense of fun and looseness that comes from him:

“Some of that playful nature was aided and abetted by their producer and confidante Dan Carey, who is known for playing about with lasers, lights and just, well, being a bit of a ‘character’. “Dan has a playful persona and has been such a good companion to have and really complements our sound. We have a relationship as a friend with him now, so we can be really open about the music, and that’s resulted in us using some really cool recording techniques,” says Laurie.

The process of forming the album while working with Dan Carey came concurrently for signing with esteemed label Warp Records, something the band are very excited about. “Although Warp is seen predominantly as an electronic music label, it’s more an experimental music label in a broader sense,” says Laurie. “That’s what drew us to them. We wanted a home where we could experiment, to our hearts’ desires”.

Apologies to move back and forward regarding timeline and theme. I think that it is important to get a good spread of information; aspects that relate to Squid’s music and their rise. I am going to move on and address a subject that is quite relevant to their popularity and quality (their album has courted some terrific reviews).

Now they have found a good hope with Warp. They have been signed to Speedy Wunderground and other labels through their career. One can understand why labels would be interested in the band. Coming back to the CRACK interview…there was an interesting section that caught my attention:

“Considering how resolutely Squid swerve definitive readings of their work, it’s unsurprising that they’re as evasive when discussing how many record labels there are currently courting them. “There’ve been a couple of lunches here and there,” Louis concedes and Laurie quips, “some Greggs sausage rolls. Some incognito service station meetings.” Arthur insists, however, that the band’s priority is writing new music for the album.

“This week we’re going to a cabin near Bristol, doing a Bon Iver, but for three days,” Anton grins. “I’ll bring the craft beer,” laughs Ollie. They hope to have an album out at some point next year, but as for the shape that new material might take, well, your guess is as good as theirs. “Who knows, it might end up being so strange that we’ll be forced to self-release it,” Louis says semiseriously, causing Laurie to exclaim, “I’d quite like that!”

However the record ends up sounding, the audience eagerly anticipating its release already extends far beyond the British Isles. “Belgium seem to love us,” says a bemused-sounding Ollie, while Louis seems equally mystified recounting a fan encounter in Germany. “I remember walking through Berlin after playing a gig in some quite nondescript area of town, and this guy just walked past and hissed, ‘Houseplants!’ at us. Honestly, it was surreal.” You sense Squid wouldn’t want it any other way”.

I am going to keep to the same theme and bring in Warp. In another interview with Loud and Quiet, the band detail that Warp, whilst not the most obvious label for them, made sense:

“On paper Squid and Warp records may initially seem an unlikely pairing, given the label’s history of being synonymous with a lot of electronic music, but the band’s post-genre and experimental approach is a snug fit. “When we got the Warp offer it was a bit like, ‘Oh that’s weird,’” says Judge. “But it kind of makes sense. It wasn’t the most obvious choice but it kind of is at the same time. I’ve also been a fan of Warp since I was really young. We used to have a lodger at my parents’ house and he was super into Aphex Twin. I remember him giving me Come to Daddy and being absolutely petrified”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Emma Swann for DIY

The next section that I want to cover is the sense of solidity and equality in the ranks. I think a band succeeds or fails depending on the hierarchy and how it is structured. If there is inequality or poor communication then that shows in their music. In this NME interview from this year, the balance and democracy in the band is outlined and emphasised:

“Lots of bands talk about all members having equal say, but Squid’s musical meritocracy seems their greatest strength. Ask if any ideas were deemed too experimental to make the cut, and you get a unanimous ‘No!’, all three members on the call looking quite proud of the fact. Medieval racketts are just the tip of their iceberg – in 2019, the band introduced themselves to NME as sounding like “The Coronation Street theme tune played on flutes by angry children”, and studio anecdotes range from their wrangling with de-tuned instruments to setting out a sacrificial-style ring of amplifiers, all playing different sounds, a microphone swinging from the ceiling to capture the chaos”.

I want to come back to this Loud and Quiet interview. Not only has making a debut album enforced their bond and confidence; their sense of direction and identity has also been illuminated:

“The process of making this album has helped solidify a sense of identity in the band, too. “When you first start a band you just want to be a band and then as you progress you start to ask yourself what kind of band do you want to be,” says Leadbetter. “I think we started to realise what we want to do is to be in a position where we’re comfortable enough that we can just have as much fun and make whatever music we want. That means that we’re able to do things like this album where things are kind of drastically different.”

Despite some members worrying about how it may be received, there’s a natural confidence in the band in what they’ve created their debut. Leadbetter, who is endlessly positive in conversation, is also thrilled he managed to get his dad on the album. “He’s a professional musician and researcher,” he says. “He specialises in medieval rock and renaissance instruments, so he played the rackett on the album. Which is a bit like a squashed bassoon. We had this idea to layer him alongside the synths to create this mega drone.” There’s also a number of guest vocalists featured, although true to Squid’s form they appear in such a mangled, treated and distorted way that they aren’t recognisable”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Titouan Massé

There are a few things that I need to go over before getting down to a review. Squid spoke to DORK (in the interview from them I brought in earlier) about making their anticipated album. Among everything else that was said, the fact that Bright Green Field is definitely not a ‘lockdown album’, really struck me:

“Squid are the kind of band who can do it all. The five friends from Brighton have established a reputation since they formed five years ago as a band capable of exciting and shocking in equal measure. You never quite know what you’re going to get, and that sense of uncertainty and ambition makes them a thrilling proposition. Their two previous EPs ‘LINO’ and ‘Town Centre’ set the scene for an idiosyncratic band forging their own path, but the long-awaited debut album arrives in the middle of an altogether unique set of circumstances. “It’s the record we wanted to make, and it’s a big thing for us,” begins Louis excitedly.

Despite the sense of excitement surrounding the release of the album, it’s tinged with a bittersweetness as a band so formidable on stage with a reputation founded on some incendiary live shows wistfully dream of what these songs could be like live. A dream that hopefully is now tantalisingly close. “We just can’t wait to play it to people,” says Laurie. “We did a session last week, and it was so much fun playing a couple of tracks, and that was just to a camera, so who knows what’s going to happen when there’s thousands of people there.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Emma Swann for DIY

In something akin to losing a leg, the band were forced to subtly change their creative dynamic as they embarked on making an album in which precious few of the songs were tried and tested live. It’s a challenge that they met head-on. “We did a bit of experimenting with different techniques,” says Laurie. “We had to do it just track by track. It was probably good to have space between us, but as soon as we could meet up again, we did. We met up in a pub in Chippenham, and they very kindly let us use their function room to write the remaining material.”

Despite the album being conceived smack bang in the middle of that most tumultuous year, it’s not defined by its circumstances. “It’s really important to note that it’s not a lockdown album,” stresses Louis. “A lot of the music was written before we knew there was a big old pandemic ready to swing around the corner. We were lucky in a way as a lot of the music on the album we wouldn’t have been able to dwell on as much if it wasn’t for the time we had to take it idea by idea and track by track in a whole summer of not touring.”

The album ‘Bright Green Field’ contains 11 brand new recordings with no old singles or anything tacked on. It’s all freshly squeezed Squid. “Get it from your wanky coffee shop!” laughs Laurie. It’s indicative, though, of a band constantly driving forward. “There’s no drive from any of us to look back and regurgitate a style or revisit stuff,” says Louis. Propulsive ambition is at the heart of Squid’s music, and while it can be disorienting as it hops from one extreme of sound to the other, it comes from a place of innate creativity and a melting pot of influences from the five members. There’s a whole lot at work in the Squid sound, and you hear it all on ‘Bright Green Field’. “There’s never been a conscious decision to do something different,” Louis ponders. “Because we each listen to such a different variety of music and we love experimenting, then naturally the music that comes out is in that vein. That’s been a running theme since we started making music five years ago. What’s changed is it’s got a lot quicker and a bit more aggressive on the whole.” “We still make softer and slightly jazzier things as well,” chips in Laurie”.

Many might wonder why Squid’s album is called Bright Green Field. They covered that in the same interview with DORK:

“Another thing that took a long time was finding the right album title before they settled on the evocative ‘Bright Green Field”. “It always seems to be titles that we spend most time on,” laments Louis with a chuckle. “It came from a reference in a book we were all interested in. It ironically denotes this godforsaken island we find ourselves on and a pastoral self-awareness and self memory. The record and title feel hopeful.”

“We had a list of about 50 titles,” adds Laurie. “At one point, the album was called ‘On Demand’. We were talking about this theme of the uncanny valley where you have this sense of a field in England that denotes something positive in childhood memories, but there’s a brightness to it which makes it seem slightly strange. That fit the mood of the pandemic and a lot of things that happen today that you can’t explain why, like the rise of the far-right. Things that you’re slightly confused about”.

The final thing that I want to mention is the songwriting themes that Squid tackle. Coming back to the NME interview, there are interesting observations regarding the songs on Bright Green Field and the subjects addressed:

“There are also personal fears among this state-of-the-nation stock-take. ‘Documentary Filmmaker’ was written about the experience of visiting a loved one on the same ward where Louis Theroux filmed a documentary about anorexia; the song doesn’t explicitly provide its context in words, but still swells with dissonant sax that perfectly captures the tumultuous feelings one goes through when willing a loved one to get well. It’s a real feat of emotional musicianship, and a display of their vitality as a unit, putting compassion into conversations that can be difficult to start. As the band’s main lyricist, Ollie doesn’t seem especially keen to unpack the more literal meanings of these songs with us, perhaps because he’s still working them out himself.

“If we’re doing anything that feels too familiar or like it’s a pastiche of something, we tend to move on,” he says, explaining that he doesn’t want to “give everything away” in a song. “When we were writing the album I watched a documentary about New Order, where Bernard Sumner said that he often writes lyrics and doesn’t really know what they’re about until other people start weighing in on them. It was a liberating thing to hear, because I think I was driving myself a little bit crazy thinking that everything had to mean a certain thing. It was a nice turning point for me, personally, to hear such a big star say that.”

“I don’t think, lyrically and musically, we’re really capable in some respects of doing a ‘conscious critique’,” Louis chips in. “There are five of us who have different approaches to writing music, and what makes society and reality so surreal is that there are so many different narratives going on, often at odds with one another. Whether it’s musically or politically or just in society, there’s always that sense of bizarreness. And I think we’re all aware of that”.

Circling back to this Loud and Quiet interview, we learn that Bright Green Field is less of a concept of political album; it is more of a transitional, coming-of-age release:

“However, despite being Ballardian in tone, both musically and lyrically, Bright Green Field isn’t a concept album, nor is it a warped reflection of the strange and unravelling times we find ourselves in during the pandemic. “It’s not usually a conscious decision to write a song about what the world is doing,” says Nankivell. “The way we compose is much more about listening to each other musically. Whether that’s been influenced by the world is usually a subconscious thing rather than being: ‘We’re gonna write a song about climate change, Brexit or Donald Trump.’

“There is a sense of real uncertainty and bleakness but it’s certainly not being reactionary to a microcosm of bad stuff going on. I think it’s kind of unspoken that the music we’ve been making has ended up having an atmosphere of a certain sense of dystopia. The new music just happened to pre-empt a certain feeling.”

Nor would the band go as far to call this a political record, despite it touching upon socio-political terrain. “I’m always kind of reluctant to describe our music as political,” says Judge, who writes the majority of the lyrics. “I’m not educated enough to be this kind of mouthpiece. I feel I’d be doing people a disservice. I’m definitely not the bastion of the disenfranchised youth. There are always going to be political references but it’s not the main talking point.”

What Squid would call the album is something of a coming of age record, with that period of quite profound and intense change that can come as you hit your mid-twenties and begin to reflect on things and see things changing all around you. “A big thing was definitely seeing friends really quickly achieving a lot of what they wanted to achieve in a short space of time,” Borlase says. “And then seeing the changes of lifestyle. It’s kind of a coming of age record but it’s also a kind of coming to terms album – more around the awareness of the reality that we’re living in”.

Boy Racers is a song that contains relatively few lyrics. Its real strength comes from the composition. The introduction is one that twists and turns. I love how unconventional their sound is. You get a real sense of atmosphere and oddity in the composition. It is a wonderfully textured and original sound that builds so much emotion and atmosphere. One listens to the composition and starts to project their own images and possibilities. The first verse is one filled with arresting and interesting lyrics: “Were you mangled by a tree?/Were you a teen girl fantasy?/It's not okay that we can't sleep tonight/With boy racers in our dreams at night/Boy racers in our dreams at night/Boy racers in our dreams at night/Boy racers in our dreams at night/Boy racer, did you see that light?/No?/Okay”. The lead vocal has this phrasing and delivery that means the words and punctuated - and each is given a different approach. Rather than a conventional delivery, Louis Borlase injects every line with something new with the vocal. It sounds quite quirky, though it is fairly ragged and eccentric. There is a lot of passion and beauty, oddly, to be found too. Between the verses, the band summon a transitional composition paragraph that is packed with weight and nuance. Again, one can listen to the music and feel like it is part of the lyrics – a continuation of the story and a different voice. I do love the mix of romance and horror in the first verse. It may seem like a song about speeding teens, though I wonder if there is another angle that Squid were taking; something that is more oblique, perhaps? The second verse is equally evocative and mysterious: “Are you suspended in time?/Does anyone even know what you might look like?/It's not okay that we can't sleep tonight/With boy racers in our dreams at night/Boy racers in our dreams at night/Boy racers in our dreams at night/Boy racers in our dreams at night/Boy racer, did you see that light?”. Maybe a lyrics about dangerous lovers or thoughts. I think that every listener will have their own interpretation regarding the words.

In a more contemplative and less frenetic delivery, the hero delivers something fairly sombre: “I always stayed at home/I always stayed at home/I always stayed at home/I should have stayed at homе”. As much as I love the instrumentation and how the composition evolves and delivers something new for each stage of Boy Racers, the lyrics have got into my head regarding the interpretation and truth. Just before the midway point, we get the best segment of the song. The lyrics stop for now and the band deliver a fade. Things go quieter and we get a section that is spacey and tense. There is a beauty and purity together with something quite strange. It is hard to describe. Showcasing their musicianship and inventiveness, perhaps this a section where the boy racer crashes or we go into a dream. It is such an unexpected and moving passage, one is barely prepared for it. To me, this passage represents a moment of finality. That said, the song is half-way done…so we know that much more is to come.

Among the processed and echoed vocals and some intergalactic touches, one loses themselves and drifts away. In some ways, one can compare Squid with Pink Floyd. There is this experimentation and progressive sound that could have appeared on a classic album from Pink Floyd. Normally, when you get these extensive instrumental segments, you can lose interests and one feels it is to pad the song out. On this occasion, there is so much to be discovered. One is hooked and mesmerised by a disembodied voice and this feeling that we are seeing the carnage and strange feeling post-crash. Maybe the boy racer motif is a metaphor for ageing or people who do not grow up; perhaps those that live recklessly. If taken literally, it seems to be the quiet after the storm. There is this moment where the tension builds and we get this electronic swirl and vortex that hovers, twists and turns. It is another awesome and memorable moment where one can envisage so much and speculate. I love how Squid change gears and they have created this impressive and immersive suite! The composition ends the song and, by the end of things, one needs to process what they have heard! There are some lyrics that I have not already mentioned: “Your face/Doesn't age/And you'rе always small/And you're always small”; “They did things that you'll never know/Sounds that you'll never hear”. It makes me thinking of some people not ageing well; something about those that race ahead in life. Perhaps Boy Racers is more about those who are immature and are living life dangerously and without purpose. However one interprets the song, it is a clear highlight from an album overloaded with gems and diamonds!

PHOTO CREDIT: Ashley Bourne for NME

I am going to wrap up soon. I will point to the future before closing things. Coming back to this Loud and Quiet interview, and one gets the sense that there is this incredible buzz around the Brighton-formed band:

“The band’s ability to digest and distil such a broad range of ideas, themes and topics makes Bright Green Field a bold and ambitious debut. One that is unafraid to take risks and keen to avoid coasting on previous successes, even if it’s resulted in some slight anxiety about putting it out into the world. “I’m a complete worrier,” says Judge, before Borlase adds: “And I’m a complete panicker. I’ve had bad dreams about negative reviews. I listen to the album occasionally and just think there’s so much in here to either love or hate.” While they have tried to ignore the fact they are something of a buzz band, from BBC Sound of 2020 Poll to a record deal with Warp within a year, it is something that trickles into their thought process. “People tend to be a bit more critical with hype bands,” ponders Judge”.

I will end with this DIY interview. One curious thing is how the band did not get to play live a lot prior to recording the album. Perhaps the pandemic has made Bright Green Field a little bleaker than it otherwise would have been:

“Featuring almost entirely unheard material (“I hate it when bands put tracks on albums that have been recorded for ages beforehand - it’s cheating”), influenced by dystopian sci-fi and written for the most part in a windowless barn in Ollie’s hometown of Chippenham, the record looks set to be as much of a journey into the stranger corners of the mind as that image might suggest. Having been forced to ditch their usual process of “write something, try it out live and then go back and tinker with it”, instead Squid had to solely embrace their situation.

PHOTO CREDIT: Holly Whittaker

“We didn’t have the live aspect, so thinking about how different all of the tracks might have sounded if we’d have played them live is quite a strange thought,” he muses. “I think it would be a completely different record. Maybe it’s more bleak than it would have been…” But bleak though the end product may be, that’s not to say the band didn’t have their share of fun during its creation. Heading back to London, there’s more than a hint of the mad scientist to the way the band and their producer approached the recording. “There was one moment where we had a thing that looked like a seance. There was a ring of amps all facing the ceiling, maybe 10 in a circle, and then we had a microphone at the top swinging round with the amps all playing different sounds,” Ollie grins. “That was a good one. Arthur’s dad is an expert in medieval instruments and he came down with a wind instrument called a rackett, which literally makes a racket, so that’s on one of the tracks too."

Eccentric but esoteric, unexpected but also with “a nice push and pull to the poppy elements”, maybe Squid’s debut is actually exactly what they’d been pointing towards all along. “Pretty terrifying, a debut album!” Ollie grimaces. “I’ve been having anxiety dreams about it getting one star for ages…” Come 2021, Squid’s star should be rising far, far higher than that”.

I shall leave things there. There are a few exciting British bands emerging that have the potential to craft a long and successful career. Squid are very much among them. Bright Green Field has (rightfully) been lauded and magnified by critics. It is a stunning debut album that has to be among the favourites ahead of the Mercury Prize announcing their shortlist later in their year. If you have not discovered the band then go and check them out and listen to Bright Green Field. It is a phenomenal album from a wonderful young band. When it comes to Squid, I am looking forward to hearing…