Photo credit Holly Whitaker
Squid have announced details of their debut album ‘Bright Green Field’ (out on 7 May via Warp Records) and shared a video for its lead single ‘Narrator’. The eight-minute behometh of a song features guest vocals from Martha Skye Murphy, while its captivating video was directed by Felix Geen, who says ‘I had wanted to make a video about the virtual creation process for some time. For example, showing the components and processes behind virtual environment construction and looking closely at those small rocks, pieces of terrain and chunks of regolith that slot together to build something bigger. I often think this “behind the digital curtain” part of 3D design looks more interesting than the final finished product since it conveys a process and an authorship. When I was approached to pitch on Squid’s single Narrator i immediately thought it could be the perfect match for this very visual idea. After talking with the band it became clear we were on similar wavelengths creatively and aesthetically and the whole creative process flowed very smoothly from start to finish.’
The band say the single was inspired by the 2019 film, ‘A Long Day’s Journey Into Night’, where a man loses the distinction between memory, dream and reality and how many mold their memories so that people from your past benefit your ego. Martha pointed out that the unreliable is most often a male who portrays women as submissie characters in their story – and this is reflected in the video. The song itself heads off in all kinds of musical directions through its running time, opening with a mathy sound that recalls Youthmovies at their most melodically experimental while Ollie Judge spits out his words with passion.
Things quieten down as scattergun riffs lure the song into a breakdown, where Martha gets her points across, before chants of ‘I play my PART’ signal a sound that sits perfectly alongside the current blend of experimental art punk acts like Black Country, New Road and Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs. The sound intensifies into something powerful and psychedelic – complete with screaming – as the song enters its final throes. It’s simply exhilarating.
