Squid get to work immediately on their latest single, “Building 650”, wasting no time in offering up an angular, clattering noise. The guitars sound like they’re rusted through and wandering across a landscape of corrugated rhythms and ruined atmospheres. Singer-drummer Ollie Judge’s voice speaks to us, a brittle narrator lost in a sea of alien landmarks and unfamiliar streets. The hardest edges eventually soften, falling into a melodic whirlpool of shimmering riffs and slinking bass.
“‘Building 650’ is a song inspired by our first ever trip to Japan,” explains Judge. “We played the Summersonic festival in 2022, luckily we were booked to play 2 days after the COVID travel ban had been lifted, because of this we felt like some of the only tourists in Tokyo. On the plane I read In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murikami 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. This loneliness feels exaggerated in Tokyo, on the surface it’s hectic and full of people but when you listen, it’s eerily quiet.“
The band worked with longtime collaborator Felix Green on the accompanying video for “Building 650”. Green enlisted local Japanese directors Daisuke Hasegawa and Kuta Tatsujo to authentically inform the feel and tenor of the clip.
“For this script, I believed it was necessary to incorporate not only inspiration from the novel (In The Miso Soup) but also scenes from contemporary Japan,” says Tatsujo. “The wave of technology is overwhelming, and an intense sense of fear, driven by the need to interact with others, envelops the city. Amidst this, I think I was able to depict the young people struggling to live and the landscape of the city.”
Green adds: “I feel that the whole video came together very nicely with the human touch added by Daisuke and Kuya. I got to have my fun with the expansive and deconstructed city shots, and it was all brought back down to earth and grounded by the raw and natural 8mm film work from them.“
Watch the video below.
Cowards is due out Feb 7 via Warp Records. You can pre-order the album here. Follow the band on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
