Squid: Bright Green Field (2LP) [WARP]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set spreads Squid's debut across four sides on Warp. It went straight to No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart and No. 1 on the UK independent chart, and Rough Trade named it one of its albums of 2021.

This edition

• 2LP set

About the album

Most bands keep the drummer at the back. Squid put him at the front: Ollie Judge sings, shouts and narrates from behind the kit, and the other four (Louis Borlase, Anton Pearson, Laurie Nankivell and Arthur Leadbetter) build twitchy, motorik post-punk around him. The group formed in Brighton in 2016, came up through the Windmill scene in Brixton and signed to Warp in 2020, citing Neu! and This Heat as touchstones.

They spent most of lockdown at Dan Carey's studio in London making the record, with Carey producing and mixing as he had on their Town Centre EP. "Narrator" is a long slow burn with Martha Skye Murphy's voice rising to meet Judge's, "Paddling" bounces along on a krautrock pulse, and "G.S.K." opens the album with brass and dread in equal measure. Strings, sax, trombone and Emma-Jean Thackray's trumpet colour the edges, so the songs sprawl without ever going slack.

Critics across Europe put it near the top of their year-end lists, and the band went on to O Monolith and Cowards on Warp. It's a record about towns, roads and the strange architecture of modern Britain, which is a fancy way of saying it sounds great on a long drive past a roundabout.

Also at Kops: more Squid on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Warp (cat# WARPLP314), the 2021 album.