Squid

Brighton to Warp

Squid is a five-piece that came together in Brighton; Wikipedia gives 2016, though a 2018 Line of Best Fit feature says they had been together about three years, implying around 2015. The band told that interview they came together at a jazz bar whose owner let them rehearse and play for free, and Borlase compared their early drum-machine ambient with piano sound to Nils Frahm. Their line-up has not changed. Ollie Judge sings and plays drums, Louis Borlase and Anton Pearson share guitar and bass, Arthur Leadbetter plays keyboards and strings, and Laurie Nankivell plays bass and cornet.

In 2016 they self-released the single "Perfect Teeth" on Bandcamp, and in 2017 the EP LINO on Bear on a Bicycle. Town Centre (Speedy Wunderground, September 2019), produced by Dan Carey, includes "The Cleaner" and "Match Bet", and Pitchfork's Jazz Monroe said it sounds like a declaration of limitlessness. They moved to London in 2019, were profiled by the Guardian as one to watch on August 3, 2019, and signed to Warp in March 2020. Judge has named Neu! and This Heat among influences; they are grouped with the crank wave and Windmill scene. They run their own tape label, INK. In 2020 they released the cover EP Natural Resources in aid of a Bristol food bank.

Bright Green Field (May 7, 2021) was recorded from March to October 2020 at Mr. Dan's Studio in London with Dan Carey, reached 4 in the UK and 1 on the UK Indie chart, and scored 89 on Metacritic; NME gave it 5 of 5, The Line of Best Fit 10 of 10, Pitchfork 8.0 and AllMusic 4.5. O Monolith (June 9, 2023) was recorded at Real World Studios in Box, Wiltshire, reaching 34, and Pearson called the complex a James Bond baddie base from which Peter Gabriel is planning on taking over the world. Cowards (February 7, 2025), with Marta Salogni, Grace Banks and Dan Carey, reached 92 and touches on cannibalism in "Crispy Skin" and the Manson murders in "Blood on the Boulders"; Judge called it a book of dark fairy tales. They played Glastonbury in June 2022 and a 17-date Cowards World Tour from May 6 to August 31, 2025.