Squid share new single ‘Building 650’
UK art rockers Squid have released their latest single, ‘Building 650’, the second track to be taken from their upcoming third album, Cowards.
Laced with knotty guitar lines, soaring strings and an overbearing sense of existential dread, the song sees the five-piece tap further into their experimental side which was seen across their previous album, O Monolith, and first Cowards single ‘Crispy Skin’.
Lead vocalist and drummer Ollie Judge said the new track was inspired by the band’s first trip to Japan, which took place mere days after pandemic travel restrictions had been lifted in 2022.
“We felt like some of the only tourists in Tokyo,” explained Judge. “On the plane, I read In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami and watched Lost in Translation out of excitement and later decided to write lyrics about being an outsider visiting Japan, including a very particular type of loneliness one can feel visiting a country that is so different from their own.”
Accompanying the release of the new track is a video, which was shot on location in Japan and directed by frequent collaborator Felix Green, alongside Daisuke Hasegawa and Kuya Tatsujo. The visual echoes the feeling of loneliness referenced in the lyrics and in the Murakami book that inspired Judge to write the song.
On their upcoming album, the band worked alongside producers Marta Salogni (Björk, Black Midi) and Grace Banks (Haim, English Teacher), while returning to Tortoise’s John McEntire for mixing as on their previous record.
Squid will release Cowards on February 7th via Warp Records and will tour the UK and Europe in support of the record through February, March, and April 2025.
Squid 2025 tour dates:
February
- 17th – Liverpool, UK, Invisible Wind Factory
- 18th – Manchester, UK, O2 Ritz Manchester
- 19th – Glasgow, UK, Old Fruitmarket
- 21st – Newcastle, UK, NSU Domain
- 22nd – Sheffield, UK, Leadmill
- 24th – Cambridge, UK, Junction 1
- 25th – Norwich, UK, The Adrian Flux Waterfront
- 27th – Oxford, UK, O2 Academy Oxford
- 28th – Southampton, UK, Engine Rooms
March
- 1st – Margate, UK, Lido
- 2nd – Brighton, UK, Chalk
- 4th – Birmingham, UK, XOYO
- 5th – Bristol, UK, Bristol Beacon
April
- 9th – Paris, FR, Cabaret Sauvage
- 10th – Cologne, DE, Club Volta
- 11th – Dresden, DE, Polimajie Festival
- 12th – Berlin, DE, Lido
- 14th – Schorndorf, DE, Manufaktur
- 15th – Amsterdam, NL, Melkweg
- 16th – Antwerp, BE, Trix
- 18th – Rotterdam, NL, Motel Mozaique Festival
- 19th – Nijmegen, NL, Doornroosje
- 26th – London, UK, Roundhouse
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