Foals’ Yannis Philippakis preps EP featuring late Afrobeat icon Tony Allen

Foals singer/guitarist Yannis Philippakis has announced Lagos Paris London, an EP he made with the late Afrobeat icon and Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen. Credited to Yannis & The Yaw featuring Tony Allen, the EP will be out August 30 via Transgressive.

The basic tracks were laid down in 2017 in Paris with Allen’s regular collaborators Vincent Taeger (percussion, marimba), Vincent Taurelle (keys) and Ludovic Bruni (bass, guitar). Scheduling conflicts kept the tracks from being finished, and then Tony died in 2020 at age 79.

“There was an imperative to finish it in a way that I had never felt with another record,” Yannis says. “There was a deep duty to do it, to finish it as well as possible, and to pay respect to him by getting it out there. Going through some of the drum takes was a moving experience because those recordings were some of the last pieces of music he ever worked on. There’s an eternal quality to these drum tracks, and you feel a continuity of his life and energy through them. He wanted people to hear this, and it’s good to be able to do it for him – but of course it’s slightly bittersweet.”

The first single from the EP is “Walk Through the Fire” and Tony’s unique, lithe and powerful style is immediately recognizable, as is Yannis’ singing and guitarwork. “[Tony’s] records had lived for so long in my head that having him in the room with me was like an illusionist’s trick,” says Yannis. Watch the video below.

LAGOS PARIS LONDON
1. Walk Through Fire
2. Rain Can’t Reach Us
3. Night Green, Heavy Love
4. Under The Strikes
5. Clementine