The FADER Magazine Issue 53 April 2008

Mathletes
Foals

“Nobody likes a good dancer. It just makes everyone else feel bad.”

As the five self-taught members of Foals began writing songs together in the summer of 2006, they didn’t fiddle with notation or chord progressions. Instead, they made maps. Coming from Oxford, England—perhaps the world’s most storied academic community—the band didn’t forgo conventional approaches as a cerebral exercise, they did it because it was the only way they knew. “We would draw these pictures that were all just dots everywhere,” says frontman and guitarist Yannis Philippakis. “I see the notes a lot more than I hear them.”

Foals’ debut Antidotes is filled with cyclonic imagery. It’s a sharp, twitchy assemblage of well-calibrated—and Dave Sitek produced—dance rock that should appeal to both acupuncturists and indie kids. Uninspired by and unfamiliar with garden-variety chords, Philippakis and fellow guitarist Jimmy Smith ignore them altogether, working pinprick parts above the 12th fret with precision. And while Philippakis admits that the band used to play “like a bunch of retards” when exploring the same styles, it’s not their acupuncturist licks that set them apart from other Oxford math or post rock outfits. It’s their appetite for pop hooks. “You’ve got these incredible bands in Oxford that are so intent on making something that is musically incredible that they just forget the idea of heart in the record, or the idea that they are actually people,” says Philippakis. “It’s like you can cut them out of the fucking equation and have the guitars play themselves.”

Drummer Jack Bevan and bassist Walter Gervers churn out polyrhythmic tantrums that mirror the band’s deep love for techno and afrobeat, but never abandon the pop organics the band champions. It’s enough to make anyone, even smart English whiteboys, move. “Nobody likes a good dancer,” says Phillippakis. “It just makes everyone else feel bad.” By adding Edwin Congreave’s Arctic synths and ten million Fela horns to the mix, Foals have developed a sound that’s rid of all the dour Johnny Marr-isms that have bogged down British rock for years. They’ve splashed the austere with soul. They’ve rendered the complicated simple.