Foals‘ Yannis Philippakis has shared the first music video from his new project, Yannis & The Yaw, featuring the late Tony Allen – watch the visuals for ‘Walk Through Fire’ below.
Last night (May 2), Philippakis released the music video for ‘Walk Through Fire’, the first track to be released from Yannis & The Yaw’s upcoming EP, ‘Lagos Paris London (feat. Tony Allen)’ – the record is due out on August 30 via Transgressive Records. Pre-save the EP here.
The music video for ‘Walk Through Fire’ is the result of an art installation held in April in London, for which 75 CRT television sets were set up at a shopfront, with each screen showcasing different themes that inspired the EP, as well as archival footage of Tony Allen.
Besides releasing the music video for ‘Walk Through Fire’, Yannis & The Yaw have also revealed an interactive website, through which fans can create their own versions of the visual as their webcams imparting them into the wall of retro TVs.
‘Walk Through Fire’ isn’t the only offering that Yannis & The Yaw have gifted fans; they’ve also announced a small collection of tour dates across Europe and London this September in support of their upcoming EP.
Yannis & The Yaw’s ‘Lagos Paris London’ featuring Tony Allen
Yannis Philippakis said of the shows via a press statement: “The shows will be free-flowing and on the edge, improvised passages will meet with hard-worn grooves. It will feature some collaborators from the project and other musicians in our extended family.
“It will be an emotional release to finally play these songs live: bittersweet and poignant without Tony here, but important to allow the music to be played live, to give it oxygen and to release the music properly into the world. It’s been a labour of love.”
A pre-sale for all shows can be accessed by signing up for the Yannis & The Yaw mailing list HERE. Tickets to the London show will go on general sale at 9am BST on Friday, May 10.
Yannis & The Yaw’s 2024 tour dates are:
SEPTEMBER
10 – Amsterdam, Paradiso
11 – Paris, La Cigale
13 – London, KOKO
Philippakis first began teasing the Yannis & The Yaw project with Tony Allen to NME in 2017. The pioneering Afrobeat musician, who played with both Fela Kuti and The Good, The Bad & The Queen, died in 2020 at the age of 79 and the music had been in development for some time ahead of his passing.
The Foals frontman met NME last month to discuss the project, who described collaborating with Allen as “one of the best musical experiences of my life”.
Philippakis recalled Allen not being “super friendly” right out of the gate, but that the Afrobeat legend had opened up quickly after jamming. He recollected of their first time playing together: “I pulled out the riff that is ‘Walk Through Fire’, Tony came into his drum area and just started playing. It was crazy. I just felt like I was lifting off slightly. We just jammed it and by the end of that day we had cut the majority of the first three tracks on the EP.”
“I went back the next morning, we did a couple of quick structural things, some handclaps, and that was kind of it. It was set it motion. We became friends just through that initial jam. It felt like the whole room warmed up.”
Foals’ Yannis Philippakis with Tony Allen. Credit: Kit Monteith
Unfortunately, Allen died mid-way through the EP’s recording process after COVID had hit and forced the production cycle to a halt. While the EP wasn’t complete, Allen and Philippakis had recorded enough for the former’s collaborators the Vincents to step in and finish the project: “Thankfully the Vincents had worked with him a bunch so they could say what Tony would and wouldn’t have wanted. They guided a lot of that principle, but a lot of the tracks were almost finished and most of what needed completing were my parts. We didn’t actually mess with that much of the original tracking. Most of the tracks were done from a jam done twice – they weren’t replayed, there weren’t multiple takes.”
“We didn’t make this EP like a record or an album where there’s a defined destination and an idea of perfection that we were striving for. It was liberated. It was very rough and ready and very fast. Once the instrumentals had been captured, they weren’t tinkered with much at all.”
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