Squid release new single ‘Building 650’ and announce UK headline tour

nme.com:

Squid have shared their latest single ‘Building 650’ and announced a string of UK headline shows for 2025.The art-rock band are preparing to release their third studio album ‘Cowards’ via Warp Records on February 7 (pre-order here) and have already shared the lead single ‘Crispy Skin’.Now, they have released a second single, the bright and colourful ‘Building 650’, which frontman Ollie Judge has said was inspired “by our first ever trip to Japan”.

Check out the video, directed by Felix Geen, Daisuke Hasegawa and Kuya Tatsujo, here:“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,” Judge explained.“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.”According to a press release, ‘Cowards’ will explore “nine stories where protagonists reckon with cults, charisma and apathy – with the band exploring the divide between right and wrong.” It sees the band continue to push their musical boundaries, exploring folk, kosmische, psychedelia, jazz and electronics.In addition, the band have announced a string of UK headline dates to take place from February to April this year, kicking off at Liverpool’s Invisible Wind Factory on February 17 and wrapping at London’s Roundhouse on April 26.