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Foals Makes Changes In Pursuit Of Ultimate Creative Freedom

Foals
Alex Knowles
/
Courtesy of the artist
Foals

Foals' latest album, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1, came out in March. Part 2 comes out in the fall. The band has been releasing stadium-sized songs for just over a decade, and this time around, it made a couple changes in pursuit of ultimate creative freedom.

The members of Foals produced the albums themselves. They tried to avoid narrowing down song structures too early in the process and they built the music in studio from the ground up. That meant once the music was recorded, lead singer and guitarist Yannis Philippakis was left alone to finish lyrics in a dark studio in South London. We talked about how that worked out and what drummer Jack Bevan was up to while Yannis was writing away. Hint: It involved a bike, a lake and France.

This is Foals' first album without Walter, their longtime bassist. In this session, you're going to hear Yannis and Jack along with Edwin on Keys and Jimmy on guitar, on some live recordings they did for World Cafe.

On Part 1, the British band really leans into the stranger side of stadium-sized songwriting. We hear live performances and "making of" stories, including lead singer Yannis' routine of writing lyrics at night while drinking at the pub, and drummer Jack Bevan's journey cycling around lakes in France. Hear it all in the player.

Copyright 2019 XPN

Talia Schlanger hosts World Cafe, which is distributed by NPR and produced by WXPN, the public radio service of the University of Pennsylvania. She got her start in broadcasting at the CBC, Canada's national public broadcaster. She hosted CBC Radio 2 Weekend Mornings on radio and was the on-camera host for two seasons of the television series CBC Music: Backstage, as well as several prime-time music TV specials for CBC, including the Quietest Concert Ever: On Fundy's Ocean Floor. Schlanger also guest hosted various flagship shows on CBC Radio One, including As It Happens, Day 6 and Because News. Schlanger also won a Canadian Screen Award as a producer for CBC Music Presents: The Beetle Roadtrip Sessions, a cross-country rock 'n' roll road trip.
Since 2017, John Myers has been the producer of NPR's World Cafe, which is produced by WXPN at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Previously he spent about eight years working on the other side of Philly at WHYY as a producer on the staff of Fresh Air with Terry Gross. John was also a member of the team of public radio veterans recruited to develop original programming for Audible and has worked extensively as a freelance producer. His portfolio includes work for the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, The Association for Public Art and the radio documentary, Going Black: The Legacy of Philly Soul Radio. He's taught radio production to preschoolers and college students and, in the late 90's, spent a couple of years traveling around the country as a roadie for the rock band Huffamoose.