SQUID – RESIDENT, BRIGHTON 10.6.23
On May 7th 2021, Brighton-based post-punk group Squid celebrated the release of their debut album ‘Bright Green Field’, an album that stretches across realms of minimalism, krautrock and art punk and was one of my favourites of that year. 763 days later, this last Friday, ‘O Monolith’ dropped. Already, people have started championing Squid for, not just succeeding the stress of following up a well-acclaimed debut like many other post-punk bands of the new generation’s scene, but for continuing to branch the creativities of their sound. Squid, fronted by Ollie Judge on drums and vocals, embraces a love for rhythmically-angular songs and abstract electronic soundscape, and in turn, welcomes in a slew of pan-generational fans. This scorching hot Saturday saw the quintet embark on a short six-date stint across record shops in the UK in the run-up to their EU and US tours starting in the autumn. With Brighton being their hometown, it was almost inevitable that Saturday would be the first show, with Resident Music playing host to the occasion.
Boiling, excited and eavesdropping the queueing gig-goers and Squid fans’ conversations on their anticipation for the night ahead, the doors to an all-time favourite record shop of mine were let open, leaving me to calmly make my way in front of Ollie’s drum kit right at the back of the shop. In front of me lay an array of instrumentation from Prophet synths and pedalboards to cornets and percussion arrangements, as well as a clear view of the printed setlist! The lights dim slightly as Ollie, Laurie Nankivell (on percussion and cornet), Anton Pearson (electric guitar), Arthur Leadbetter (synth) and Louis Borlase (guitar and synth) assembled their places in front of the staff counter (and even behind it in Arthur and Louis’ case). As the welcoming cheer and applause eventually dies down, Ollie meekly remarks: “we usually have a prog-set of gongs and stuff, but we couldn’t fit it in, so this is Squid’s MTV Unplugged!”.
A lengthy synth passage begins to gestate in the opening moments of the set while Ollie keeps a steady hi-hat rhythm. This leads us to the first track from ‘O Monolith’, entitled ‘Swing (In A Dream)’, a song that maintains a fantastically sturdy 7/4 groove underneath Ollie’s slightly yelpy singing voice, not unlike that of singers like The Fall’s Mark E. Smith. Arthur plays around with synth passages that are oddly menacing in tone and voice, something that is often a prominent feature in many a Squid song. The song eventually quietens down to Laurie’s horn break until suddenly the rhythm changes the performance into something more hellish and disorienting. As an abrupt ending occurs in the song, the crowd of Squid fans fill any possible gaps in Resident Music with applause and cheer.
The following ‘Devil’s Den‘ happens to follow ‘Swing (In A Dream)’ on the album’s tracklist, and the flow feels just as natural here as it does on the album itself. Anton and Louis engage in multi-layering electric guitar performances as Ollie’s singing takes a more reserved tone of voice. Something that I could remark extremely highly for the band is how well the overall sound came across considering how small of a room the Resident Music shop is.
Two cuts from the band’s ‘Bright Green Field’ debut are next; the first, ‘Documentary Filmmaker’, is much more meditative than ‘Swing (In A Dream)’ and ‘Devil’s Den’ with its phasing synth passages and noodling guitar licks. The song eventually slows down until Ollie gives his cue to kick back into gear in the form of the lyric “cos it was warm in the summer, warm in the summer…!” (how fitting). The five-piece eventually let the song sedate itself in ambience until more motifs are added to lead into the second debut cut ‘G.S.K..‘ Those familiar with this song will clock the more mutative grooves in this live performance compared to the original on ‘Bright Green Field’; it’s more jerky, tom-driven in parts and the call and responses between the noisier and quieter parts in the middle section of the song are more volatile.
The band re-adjust themselves as they enter the next track, ‘After The Flash’. Here, Laurie sways us in with lengthy singular notes on a cornet before Anton and Louis counteract that with a 5/4 guitar groove. Compared to everything else in the set so far, the overall atmosphere of this track feels more like a swamp than the clean-cut, angular rhythms of ‘G.S.K.’ or ‘Swing (In A Dream)’. The song progresses towards a conclusion… But wait, what’s this? A sneaky synth passage from Arthur brings the driving force of the track back into play as we reach an overwhelming final section to the song with cries of “Can I keep it up?!” emanating from Ollie.
The final track of the show, ‘Undergrowth’, is a prime example of Squid maintaining their strong sense of musicianship; they’re all able to communicate with each other flawlessly by saying so little and doing so much. The performances on this song are strict in groove and angular in guitar passages, with Anton’s gnarly guitar freakouts calling for a response from Arthur’s synth freakouts. As Laurie leads the song out with some quiet trumpet notes, the final round of applause is delivered from the audience as they start making their way round to the merch table to collect their copies of ‘O Monolith’.
Nervous as I was, I felt brave enough to approach Ollie after the show ended and thank him for not just a great performance, but for a great new album! To this day, meeting some of my favourite musicians of all-time still feels quite nerve-wracking; I felt the same when meeting personal icons like Phil Elverum, Black Country New Road, and more recently, Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart. Squid are a group that define what I believe true performance musicianship is: that excitement that comes from watching talented people doing what they love doing, witnessing such incredible sounds and feeling completely at one within such controlled chaos in music such as theirs.
Squid setlist:
‘Swing (In A Dream)’ (from 2023’s ‘O Monolith’)
‘Devil’s Den’ (from 2023’s ‘O Monolith’)
‘Documentary Filmmaker’ (from 2021’s ‘Bright Green Field’)
‘G.S.K.’ (from 2021’s ‘Bright Green Field’)
‘After The Flash’ (from 2023’s ‘O Monolith’)
‘Undergrowth’ (from 2023’s ‘O Monolith’)
