Squid team up with Tim Key and Paul Ewan for ‘O Monolith’ audiobook ‘Lessons’

Squid have teamed up with Tim Key to record the audio of Paul Ewen’s story Lessons, which is available to listen to now.

• READ MORE: Squid on new album ‘O Monolith’: “We’re all in the groove now: we’ve never been more confident”

The story was first featured on a pamphlet inside vinyl copies of the band’s new album ‘O Monolith’, which came out last month, while Squid guitarist Anton Pearson has written accompanying music for the audio read by UK poet, screenwriter and comedian Key, which is free to listen to on Bandcamp and YouTube.

“We’ve loved working with these two people we really admire,” Pearson said of the release in a press statement.

You can listen to the new audio recording below.

Elaborating on the collaboration, Pearson said: “John Fahey’s story insert to his 1967 album ‘The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death’, inspired the project, and after reading and listening to Paul Ewen’s amazing work (London Pub Reviews, How to be a Public Author) and talking to him, we found he had a great understanding of our work and exciting ideas for the project.

“He said he wanted to write a story about an out of touch geography teacher and it doesn’t get much more exciting than THAT! Similarly, Tim seems to have an amazing grasp of Paul’s humour and his delivery takes it to another level, as is the case on the pub reviews series.”

Pearson continued: “I went to see Tim on his Mulberry tour and loved it so was very excited to have him involved. It was fun writing some music for the audiobook, I used stems from the album for some of it and built other bits from scratch. I hope people enjoy listening to the audiobook and can pick up on a few themes from ‘O Monolith’ running through it.”

Ewen added that it was “one of the best collaborations I’ve ever had” and described ‘O Monolith’ as “both brilliant and wonderful”, also sharing that it’s “been a privilege to add some not-so-serious storytelling about serious issues to this seriously good album”.

Speaking in a recent interview with NME, the band explained their musical growth on the new record: “When we first started playing together seven or eight years ago we wanted to do things, but our musicianship wasn’t as strong as it is today,” said vocalist Ollie Judge. “Being able to 1690379600 go back and execute what we couldn’t execute then is great. We’re all in the groove now: we’ve never been more confident.”

NME described  ‘O Monolith’ as a “monument to daring artistic growth” in a four-star review, adding: “Bolstered by a newfound sense of self-confidence and appreciation for melody, the five-piece’s more experimental second album reveals more of itself with each enchanting listen.”