Squid
Town Centre

If I had to summarize my personal 2019 in music, I would say it was the Year of England. Almost half of my top 10 favorite albums were released by English artists. The latest additions to my earbuds are these four kids from the suburbs of London, who just under three months ago came out with this mini LP (or long EP, given its 23-minute duration) of 4 tracks, each different from the other, yet held together by a marked taste for less immediate solutions and an excellent syncretic ability.

To be concise, our guys play a sport that combines disparate musical characteristics, attempting to unite rarefied, almost ambient atmospheres reminiscent of the late Talk Talk of “Laughing Stock” (the initial 5 minutes of “Savage”) with syncopated rhythms, rubbery bass, horns, and more. So well-executed as to evoke heart bands from two decades ago like Gomez and partly Beta Band (exemplary in this sense is the alternation of post punk explosions and almost jazz trumpets in the perfect “Match Bet”). Not content, they even throw in a white funk between the '70s and '80s, a bit like Talking Heads, a bit like early Julian Cope, a bit like tacky pop due to a really cheap synth (“The Cleaner”), managing to remain credible throughout all 9 minutes of the track. Thanks, in my opinion, to an inspired singer-drummer with a timbre and accent somewhere between Fall and news broadcast announcements.

And don't be surprised if by the end of the 6 minutes of the finale “Rodeo”, another ingenious piece that simultaneously touches folk, dub, and electronic bases, your finger quickly hits the repeat button; the guys deserve it. Now we await their full-length debut scheduled for 2020.