Warp music group Squid’s latest single, Building 650, takes inspiration from Ryū Murakami’s 1997 novel In the Miso Soup, which takes a surreal, disturbing journey into the Japanese night-time. The group handed the task of creating a music video for the single to Felix Geen, who previously directed the video for their single Narrator. That was set in a range of glitchy 3D worlds, drawing on the director’s background in CG and VFX. However, for their new single, Geen was keen to root the video in real spaces.

“I instantly bought myself a copy of Ryū Murakami’s In the Miso Soup and read it all in one sitting. Straightaway I knew this video had to take place in Tokyo,” Geen explains. To bring it to life, he turned to local director Daisuke Hasegawa, who Geen met on a previous trip to the city, and who in turn brought his own team on board, including Kuya Tatsujo as another co-director.

After speaking with Geen about the project, Hasegawa read the book and began thinking of concepts. “Afterward, Felix and I worked together on the structure, incorporating his expertise in dynamic and humorous VFX along with elements from 1970s Japanese experimental cinema,” he explains.

The video blends digital and analogue material, bringing together Geen’s elaborate “deconstructed city shots”, which he says are “grounded by the raw and natural 8mm film work” by Hasegawa and Tatsujo.

Tatsujo was keen to draw on the book while also incorporating “scenes from contemporary Japan”, namely the struggles that young people face in modern life. “The wave of technology is overwhelming, and an intense sense of fear, driven by the need to interact with others, envelops the city,” Tatsujo says.

This was something that was also on Hasegawa’s mind – to build on the 1990s Tokyo of the book and evolve it for today. “One of the most striking lines from the novel stayed with me: ‘Most of the streetwalkers do it for the money, but the deeper reason is that they do it to fill the emptiness of their own loneliness.’ This line had a profound impact on me, and I felt strongly that I wanted to express the reality of Tokyo, of Japanese society, and of the people living in it today, as an answer to the novel.”

The script was rewritten at each stage of a new director becoming involved, though the collaborators didn’t shy away from this and instead embraced each evolution. The work became all the richer for it, blending insider and outsider perspectives of Tokyo culture in a unique way.

“In the end, I believe we were able to depict the complex and chaotic nature of Tokyo as Felix perceives it, while also considering how we, as Japanese people, respond to it,” says Hasegawa. “The result is a piece that touches on the deeper layers of society, much like the chaotic world portrayed in In the Miso Soup.”

Working with other directors has also introduced Geen to a different way of working, which has left an imprint on him for the long term. “As someone who does not come from a traditional film education background, I always shy away from doing things with actors and scripts and lights and big cameras, but it was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever had the opportunity to be involved in.”

Cowards by Squid is out via Warp on February 7; squidband.uk