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Apr 18, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Michelle Helena Janssen

British experimental post-punk five-piece Squid are releasing a new album, O Monolith, on June 9 via Warp. Now they have shared its second single, “Undergrowth,” as well as an accompanying video game. They have also announced some new 2024 North American tour dates. Listen to “Undergrowth” below, followed by the tour dates. Play the game here.

Squid drummer/vocalist Ollie Judge had this to say about the new single in a press release: “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?’”

Squid’s Louis Borlase directed the visualizer video for “Undergrowth” and had this to say: “When we were writing O Monolith we rented a little studio in St Pauls and whichever way we’d walk home, the BRI Hospital chimney would always be standing there – jutting out in front of a disc of countryside beyond. Sometimes it feels like most folklore hides in the countryside’s nooks. At other times it comes in closer, lurking in the bins on the walk back from the shops.”

Frank Force, the creator of the video game, 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.”

Tickets for Squid’s new tour dates go on sale this Friday at 10 a.m. local time.

Previously Squid shared the album’s first single, album opener “Swing (In a Dream),” via a music video.

O Monolith is the band’s sophomore full-length and follow’s 2001’s debut album, Bright Green Field.

Squid features Louis Borlase, Ollie Judge, Arthur Leadbetter, Laurie Nankivell, and Anton Pearson. Long-time collaborator Dan Carey produced O Monolith, which was mixed by John McEntire (of Tortoise).

Squid started working on O Monolith just two weeks following Bright Green Field’s release. At the time the band was on tour, playing seated and socially distanced shows, as the pandemic was still very much a factor. On that tour they tested out some new material. “Without that tour we wouldn’t have any of these tracks,” says Judge in a press release. “People were so looking forward to seeing live music that we thought we could just play anything, even if it was unfinished. In some form or another we played about 80% of O Monolith, mostly without lyrics.”

Of the themes on the album, Borlase says: “There’s a running theme of the relation of people to the environment throughout. There are allusions to the world we became so immersed in, environmental emergency, the role of domesticity, and the displacement you feel when you’re away for a long time.”

Read our 2021 interview with Squid.

Squid Tour Dates:

Fri. May 5 - Wrexhman, WS @ Focus Wales
Sun. June 18 - Wicklow, IE @ Beyond The Pale
Fri. June 30 - Werchter, BE @ Rock Werchter
Sun. July 2 - Lars, DE @ Fusion
Fri. July 21 - Hertfordshire, UK @ Standon Calling
Sat. July 22 - Oxfordshire, UK @ Truck Festival
Wed. Aug. 16 - Portugal, ES @ Paredes De Coura
Fri. Aug. 18 - Brecon, WS @ Green Man
Sat. Sep. 2 - Vlieland, NL @ Into The Great Wide Open
Tue. Sep. 5 - Cologne, DE @ Katine
Wed. Sep. 6 - Esch-sur-Alzette, LU @ Rockhal
Thu. Sep. 7 - Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
Fri. Sep. 8 - Utecht, NL @ TivoliVredenburg ROnda
Sat. Sep. 9 - Hamburg, DE @ Knust
Mon. Sep. 11 - Aarhus, DK @ Voxhall
Tue. Sep. 12 - Copenhagen, DK @ Vega
Wed. Sep. 13 - Berlin, DE @ Festsaal Kreuzberg
Fri. Sep. 15 - Leipzig, DE @ UT Connewitz
Sat. Sep. 16 - Zurich, CH @ Mascotte
Tue. Sep. 19 - Milan, IT @ Santeria
Thu. Sep. 21 - Barcelona, ES @ Sala Apollo 2
Fri. Sep. 22 - Valencia, ES @ Jerusalem
Sat. Sep. 23 - Madrid, ES @ Sala Copérnico
Sun. Sep. 24 - Bordeaux, FR @ Rock School Barbey
Mon. Sep. 25 - Paris, FR @ Elysée Montmartre
Wed. Sep. 27 - Rouen, FR @ Le 106
Fri. Oct. 13 - Bristol, UK @ SWX
Sat. Oct. 14 - Bristol, UK @ SWX
Mon. Oct. 16 - Birmingham, UK @ Town Hall
Tue. Oct. 17 - Leeds, UK @ O2 Academy Leeds
Thu. Oct. 19 - Manchester, UK @ New Century
Sat. Oct. 21 - Glasgow, UK @ Barrowland Ballroom
Sun. Oct. 22 - Newcastle, UK @ Boiler Shop
Wed. Nov. 1 - London, UK @ Troxy
Fri. Feb. 2 - Austin, TX @ The Parish
Sat. Feb. 3 - Dallas, TX @ Dada
Mon. Feb. 5 - Nashville, TN @ Basement East
Tue. Feb. 6 - Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West
Thu. Feb. 8 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
Fri. Feb. 9 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
Sat. Feb. 10 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
Wed. Feb. 14 - Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
Thu. Feb. 15 - Montreal, QC @ SAT
Fri. Feb. 16 - Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre
Sun. Feb. 18 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
Mon. Feb. 19 - Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line
Fri. Feb. 23 - Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall
Sat. Feb. 24 - Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre
Sun. Feb. 25 - Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile
Tue. Feb. 27 - San Francisco, CA @ Regency Ballroom
Thu. Feb. 29 - Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory
Fri. March 1 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Belasco

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