For most of us, late-night inspirational moments tend to be short-lived when it comes to getting fit or trying to find a new hobby. Not so with Squid vocalist Ollie Judge. One night while working on the band’s second album, he found himself lying in bed. He wakes up from a dream that will set the tone for the rest of the record.
In his dream, the judge is immersed in one of his favorite paintings, the 18th-century Rococo classic “The Blanco” by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Standing in the bushes of the piece, fiddling with a dead cell phone, he eventually realized that the entire scene was becoming flooded. After waking up, he scribbles his thoughts, fragments of which would form the chorus of the album’s lead single, “Swing (In A Dream).”Live in a frame and forget everything / Just scream on the swing in your dreams”.
“At the time, I was having a really hard time writing lyrics for this record,” says Judge. NME. “Maybe my subconscious gave me a dream, a sympathy, and a good dream to write about.”
Judge said, in hindsight, the dream likely represented a cry for help of some kind, and although the song that inspired the dream could be interpreted in a similar way, the listener was left with the squid’s actual literal meaning. acknowledges the need to scrutinize the lyrics quite carefully to identify an interpretation of thinking. Through their sophomore LP, O Monolith, the quintet push their creativity to newer, bolder heights, resulting in their most mature and enigmatic body of work to date.
On this new album, Squid breaks away from the wildly frenzied manic state of his early work and instead emerges as an intimidating, confident, and highly evolved predator. Louis Boulez and Anton Pearson’s guitars take time to breathe, expanding the band’s sound accordingly, allowing ambient spaces to form during an increasingly experimental post-punk explosion. .
One of the reasons for this change in sound comes from literal dilation. Whereas 2021’s debut album, Bright Green Fields, was produced in producer Dan Carey’s modestly sized south London studio, this time the squid is mostly Peter Gabriel’s in Wiltshire. Recorded at the pristine Real World Studios, but behind the desk, Carey’s service was maintained. Judge explains: “One of the first decisions we made was that he wanted to move Dan’s claustrophobic studio sound to something a little more open.”
With this newfound freedom came a desire to push things forward musically. “We were pretty keen to make this an album that was more about melodic exploration,” says Borlaze. “We were moving a little bit towards less drone and more melody.” It’s represented in tracks like ‘Lights’. Along with the judges’ drum patterns, rhythm was often a key element on “O Monolith,” and Squid was influenced from all sides in that respect.
“There was a certain rhythm that got us very excited,” Bollase explains. “Me and Arthur [Leadbetter, keyboardist] I was driving in our van and the indicators were clicking abnormally. We started tapping along and realized it sounded really good. It was recorded on the album. “The liner notes need to credit the good people of Vauxhall,” the judge interjected.
Another big change from the first album to the second is the delivery of Judge’s vocals. Squid’s groundbreaking singles “Houseplants” and “The Cleaner” established his trademark rowdy shriek, but on “O Monolith” the vocalist experimented with softer, more subtle sounds. I hear you there. For example, the last section of “The Blades” makes him sound decidedly vulnerable. At first he was reluctant to make this progress, but now he is happy to have achieved his own progress.
“Louis and Anton would play that guitar line over and over in the rehearsal room,” he recalls. “When you have a song that soft and beautiful, you don’t want to ruin it by yelling. increase.”
The album’s closing track, ‘If You Had Seen The Bull’s Swimming Attempts You would Have Stayed Away’, courtesy of the ensemble Shards, adds a chorus to Judge’s vocals for the first time on a record. Ika was fascinated by the idea of using traditional musical tools to convey an aesthetic rooted in a rustic history while still sounding menacing and modern. It is in this aspect that they drew inspiration from Gazelle Twin & the New York’s 2021 industrial folk album Deep England, and these albums will be released alongside The New Puritans and Talk Talk. , considered the band to be their main influence. This group of artists all share a philosophical kinship and are partners in abstract musical exploration.
Where “Bright Green Field” was – misleadingly – an album rooted in urban sprawl, “Oh Monolith” finds Squid exploring British nature. From the gentle use of field recordings in “After the Flash” and “Green Light” to the “Devil’s Den” (named after a monument in Neolithic Wiltshire, British folklore tradition This album is the band’s sound, right down to the song “Ripe”. We seek out geographic histories that we can relate to, longing to immerse ourselves in traditions that predate our own.
However, contrary to their enigmatic tendencies, the squid are reluctant to acknowledge such claims. “We discussed the album before we made it,” says Judge. “We intentionally said we didn’t want it to make too much sense. We talked a lot about the concept on ‘Bright Green Field,’ but this one is a bit more broad-ranging, from the past to the present.” The very notion of a titular monolith is also deliberately mysterious, “it’s geological, it’s man-made, it’s spiritual,” Borlaze added.
The idea for the album dates back to the weeks after the release of Bright Green Field, when Squid embarked on a socially distanced, all-seat UK tour. Few contemporaries were able to create such headwinds in the year before Covid-19, and while the disruption cost valuable tour opportunities, the enforced regulations will ultimately pay off in the long run. They feel that it might have been a plus.
“I don’t think we could have made an album like ‘Bright Green Field’ without Covid-19,” Borlase recalls. “And maybe if they had been busy touring at that time, five weirdos wouldn’t have written a second album like this in a bunker.”
The five members of Ika may have first met in Brighton in 2016, but they are one of the pivotal bands in South London’s famed post-punk scene centered around Windmill Brixton. It was widely believed to be so for quite some time. While a new generation of contenders (i.e. Umlautz, Modern Woman, Miss Tiny) are beginning to emerge in the wake, Ika focuses on its own rapid development. The recent move towards softer tones is reminiscent of early rehearsal sessions in various band members’ bedrooms, and that initial enthusiasm, combined with their current level of performance, has them excited for the future. .
“When we first started playing together seven or eight years ago, we wanted to do what we wanted, but our musicality was not as strong as it is today,” says Judge. “can 1686115968 It’s nice to be able to go back and do things that couldn’t be done. We are all doing well now. I have never felt so confident. “
Squid’s new album, O Monolith, is out on Warp Records on June 9th. Bandcamp will host a pre-release listening party on June 7th.
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