Squid “Swing (In a Dream)” Official Video

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What is real? I hope the reindeer is or at least the potatoes are. Those are my thoughts on this video. I dug it to say the least.

Upon the release of their debut album, Bright Green Field, in 2021, Squid established themselves as one of the most innovative new bands from the UK, live and on record, “eschewing individual showmanship in favor of scorching collective peaks” (Pitchfork). Bright Green Field was a top 5 charting debut album in the UK, garnering best of 2021 praise by the likes of Stereogum, SPIN, Bandcamp, Pitchfork, Consequence, Paste, Vulture, Under The Radar and more. The New Yorker described it as an album that “cannot be pinned down. Many of the songs split apart to reveal uninhabited and uncanny worlds within themselves.”

Squid’s sophomore album, O Monolith, was produced by long-time collaborator, Dan Carey, recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World studios in Wiltshire, and mixed by John McEntire (of Tortoise). It is dense and tricksy – but also warm, with a winding, questioning nature. Uncut says, “O Monolith channels the shapeshifting patterns of Steve Reich and late-period Radiohead to fashion a kind of lush English pastoral that seethes and shimmers at every turn.” The album teems with melodic epiphanies and is a musical evocation of environment, domesticity, displacement, and self-made folklore. A sense of open conversation is cultivated: this is unmistakably music made by friends.