Mind of a Squid

From the first note, this band will change you like you were changed the first time you heard Dark Side of the Moon... but Mind of a Squid take music to ethereal planes that Roger Waters has long forgotten about. - Townehouse Magazine

Rolling bass lines, metronomic guitar, and crisp-as-the-dawn drumming take us just this side of heaven's gate. - Georga Strait, Vancouver

The live shows are amazing! - Wavelength Magazine

Mind of a Squid - Smart crustaceans of sci-fi spaghetti western atmospherics from Toronto. - Monday Magazine

A couple years ago, strange sounds were heard emanating from 'Chore's rehearsal space in' Hamilton's Sonic Unyon Records. It was Erik Culp, known for his quirky solo work as the Atomic Cosmonaut, jamming for the fun of it alongside Mike and Chris Bell from Chore. But someone recognized their potential and booked Mind of a Squid for their first show. After a year of playing as a mostly instrumental jam band, Culp recruited a permanent lineup of singer/Rhodes player Marina Adam, bassist Scott Bucsis and drummer Blas Melissari. MOAS now structure all their songs and include a lot more vocals, but the tunes on Down Low still reflect their spacey experimental origins. "The reason I started Mind of a Squid," Culp says, "was just to bring music across to a live audience, because I found doing the Cosmonaut thing, it was hard to get people to hear it. I mean, radio stations across the country were playing it, I was getting reviewed and everything, but still it didn't reach the masses the same way performing live does." Culp meticulously builds his lush template of sounds in his home studio one track at a time. In order to play live, however, he relies on the technical wizardry of a loop sampler pedal to fill it all out. "Instead of me playing the traditional one part on guitar," he says, "it's like 20 parts happening at the same time. It's kind of hard to wrap your head around initially. Instead of the drummer being the leader of time in the band it becomes 'the loops'. As a result, it sounds like you have a 20-piece band playing." Culp, who mixes sound for film professionally, often draws inspiration for the band's atmospheric sound from the celluloid medium. "Not film music per se, but the vibe film gives you," he says. "Like a good Clint Eastwood western or Logan's Run or something like that. I think that would be my biggest influences-crazy, weird sci-fi films and stuff."
- April 2004


Now Magazine - Wish album Review

MIND OF A SQUID Wish (Reg's Towing Co. Ltd/Sonic Unyon) Rating: NNN

Wish, the second album from Toronto-via-Hamilton quartet Mind of a Squid, is a pleasant slice of outerspacey psych rock. Though they started as an instrumental jam band, MoaS have reined in their riffs and added vocals to more structured songs, which come in two lengths, regular and extended play, none of which, thankfully, meander without purpose. They build layer upon layer of guitar, bass, drums and Rhodes keyboard, constructing a dreamy mood reminiscent of very early Pink Floyd, with the addition of subtle electronic blips and bleeps. Generally placid but not toothless.



A Mesmerizing Night at Sneaky Dee's
Gen-Sub Records Zine

MIND OF A SQUID closed the show with a mesmerizing set of meandering epic jams. This band’s captive audience quickly realizes that mainstream formulaic song structuring is not part of the equation. Mind Of A Squid’s songs are more a blend of performance art. Bleeding into one another through thoughtful use of sampling and effects, each piece seems to become an entity that grows on its own, perhaps even beyond the band members’ control. Certainly, a fine closing set to a fantastic night which all the artists easily made worth enduring the trek through the cold.

- Vue Magazine, Edmonton

The complexity of sounds on this Debut Album, are to be applauded for raising the bar on what can be produced by a predominantly 4-piece. MOAS play with blues, rock and electronica and produce an intelligent, but not demanding sound. - Losingtoday Magazine

Toronto groove rock quartet Mind of a Squid are back with Wish, a “striking space rock album with solid song writing and deep layers of atmospherics…lush and dream-like…full of gorgeous space textures and stellar, siren-like vocals.” - 2005

Toronto’s Mind of a Squid fly high, with astounding, tripped out space rock. - 2003 - Aural Innovations Magazine

Mind Of A Squid are a slightly bombastic group that are big on chops, guitar geek noodling, jazz and sampling. Huge sounds - Chart Magazine

"Mind of a Squid play loud, sonically stunning soundscapes layered with guitar, loops, samples and noise - eye Weekly