No more horsing around

By Nadine McBay, Metro 03.03.08

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Foals must thank their lucky stars for the likes of Hot Chip, British Sea Power and Vampire Weekend.

That trio are among those who have proved that, by pushing the boundaries of emotionally and musically literate pop, considerable chart success can still be achieved.

And for Foals, now signed to respected indie label Transgressive, it has meant more of the mainstream has been willing to sit up and listen to their contradictory sound.

Complex and poppy, exuberant but with a somewhat solemn undertow, new single Cassius sums this Oxford band up. It's a wasp's nest of jutting, high-velocity rhythms, impressionistic lyrics, and twitching guitars plucked high on the fretboard.

There are also slivers of brass, courtesy of Brooklyn Afrobeat band Antibalas. Chords and terracechant choruses are glaringly absent; the band count Steve Reich and math-rockers Sweep The Leg Johnny among their influences.

the beginning, we felt almost ashamed of what we were writing - it felt too poppy,' confesses chief Foals herdsman Yannis Philippakis about the summer of 2006. That was when keyboard player Edwin Congreave joined the stable and began the transformation of just another British band influenced by US hardcore into one of the most exciting propositions of 2008.

'We wanted to make things more direct,' Philippakis continues. 'Edwin was into techno and when he joined, things became a lot more focused - we started doing house parties and actually began practising, whereas before we had just been messing around. There was a simple pop joy to that summer. There were people that didn't like what we were doing, that still don't like it, but we're not doing this to make friends.'

The quintet have nevertheless won new admirers ('I think we've been lucky with how the wind has changed'). Their reputation for delirious house parties earned them a spot on adolescent drama Skins; they've also entertained the more mature audiences of Later...With Jools Holland; they've tickled the curiosity of hip webzines and broadsheets alike. And they've managed this by creating a sound that's deceptively straightforward. 'We make things so complicated that they become simple,' states Philippakis. 'It's almost an illusion.'

Last August, Foals released Mathletics - the title being perfect shorthand for the band's limber, taut and surprisingly graceful shtick.

But that single, like its predecessor Hummer, doesn't feature on their forthcoming album, Antidotes. Philippakis describes the contrary action as a 'statement of intent' and it certainly reflects the band's thirst for progress and also their sense of self-belief.

In fact, the driven quintet were bold enough to shelve the mix of Antidotes that was presented to them by illustrious producer Dave Sitek - member of critics' favourite TV On The Radio and twiddler of choice for almost every ambitious New York band.

'Psychologically, Dave was a massive influence on the band,' Philippakis recalls. 'He not only produces your record, he redecorates your skull. No producer we had spoken to before had come up with ideas anything like his; everyone else said: "Let's make this a really glossy dance record", whereas Dave wanted to make it melancholy and euphoric. People we'd recorded with in the past were just too polite. The last thing Dave is, is polite; he's a bully, which really worked for us.'

So what went wrong? Essentially, it was all in the reverb. Sitek had made Foals' pristine, staccato guitars echo into outer space - the worst crime for a band obsessed with sonic tidiness. 'It just didn't feel like our record any more,' says the frontman. 'It wasn't like it hadn't been well executed - it had. It's just that he'd taken the album to a very different place to the one we had left New York with.

I guess we shouldn't have been surprised as Dave isn't the sort of person who's going to constrain himself. His motto is: "Why mess around when you can f*** around?"

'So we sat for two weeks and remixed it, got rid of the reverb and brightened it up a bit. We kind of fell out with Dave for a while, because that's the sort of people we are - we'll fall out over anything creative. But these tensions can be good - it was important for us to assert ourselves.'

And this is a band who thrive on antagonism. 'We egg each other on, it's like a joust,' Philippakis admits. 'It's a bit like being in a tiny, tiny lift that's just stopped with all of you in some kind of weird embrace, some violent embrace.'

Yet it all works. Cassius is receiving huge support across the airwaves - including from Radio 1 - and Antidotes is surely a shoo-in for a Mercury nomination. What's more, Philippakis wouldn't have this strange, awkward yet satisfyingly approachable band any other way.

'There's something really claustrophobic about us, in a good way, both personally and creatively,' he reflects. 'We're just a bit weird, I think. We're like a school trip gone wrong without any parents or teachers there.'

Cassius (Transgressive) is out March 10. Antidotes follows on March 24.

 

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