Riding High

By Joe Kavanagh

Now that the post holiday lull in the music industry has drawn to a close, the hype machine once again kicks into overdrive as record companies and the media make their picks as to what artists will shape the upcoming year in a musical sense. Ordinarily speaking, there can be up to a couple of dozen names on everyone's list of who to look out for in the year ahead, with perhaps a handful of these actually meeting the expectation foisted upon them.

In the notoriously hyperbolic world of the UK media however, one act is increasingly emerging as the biggest candidate for global success in the music stakes and if achievement can be gauged from platitudes from the underground music press, this band is already well on the way to global domination before even releasing an album. Their advocates claim that they will be this year's Klaxons, while their detractors describe them in virtually the same terms, passing them off as little more than an ersatz version of last year's hottest ticket in European music.

Whatever your position, with the hype machine in full swing and high-profile record deals on both sides of the Atlantic, there is little doubt that the Foals are already halfway into the public consciousness.

The Foals were born among the serene and erudite surrounds of the English town of Oxford, where they were initially formed by singer/guitarist, Andrew Mears, who was looking for a side-project from his main band, Youthmovies, and hooked up with fellow singer/guitarist, Yannis Philippakis and drummer, Jack Bevan.

The latter pair had been friends since childhood and once formed the axis of highly regarded outfit, The Edmund Fitzgerald, until they found that life in the experimental rock act had become "too serious" and sought something that took them away from the banality of creating 20 minute long tracks, that often tried to be too clever by half.

Happy to join up with a likeminded musician, the trio soon found other accomplices in Jimmy Smith (keys/guitar), Edwin Congrieve (keys) and Walter Gervars (bass), who were all fellow university students with somewhat off-kilter music tastes that would be an anathema to most students of their age.

Instead of the typical college student music palate of punk, reggae, indie etc, the five friends' tastes converged on the likes of folk music, minimalist techno, and even world music, which is quite possibly the most uncool music in the known universe. Some of this can be perhaps explained by the band's most influential member, Philippakis, who had left his native Greece as a child to live in the UK with his anthropologist mother, but once told an interviewer: "My dad makes instruments like the ancient Greek lyre and the bagpipes and has been a Byzantine iconographer for most of his life. He's never even heard of Jimi Hendrix. He just lives on an island with my brother - he's a proper mountain-goat Greek boy!"

The band is also heavily influenced by abstract composer, Steve Reich, and - as you might expect - fellow Oxford outfit, Radiohead, but before you go filing them under "completely pretentious", they also point to acts such as Nelly Furtado and Gwen Stefani, as being highly influential in how they set about making music. In fact, they pride themselves on retaining a distinctively pop component as they set out to make music that is as much beholden to fun as any notion of grandeur.

While their music has undoubted depth, they were determined to make it accessible with Philippakis recently telling a BBC interviewer: "We wanted to make a pop band - or our idea of a pop band - as a reaction against stuff that we didn't like about what we'd [The Edmund Fitzgerald] become and what was going on in Oxford."

In contrast to most acts, the band also steadfastly maintain that they have little or no idea of the names of the chords or notes they are playing, they just simply set about fashioning songs on the basis of what sounds fit with each other in order to make the catchiest tunes.

In addition, their love of techno music has also led to a distinctive use of their instruments, whereby guitars are often played in a manner more accustomed to keyboards, with notes being stabbed instead of going for more traditional melodies.

They have also been heavily linked with the so-called "Math Music" genre, which is typified by dissonant chords, complex melodies and unusual time signatures that often stray from traditional beats like 4/4 timing.

If it all sounds bit convoluted in theory, then don't be put off, because no matter how complicated the recipe, the proof of the pudding is always in the eating and the band's initial single, Try This On Your Piano, released on a tiny indie label in 2006, was evidence of a short, sharp, punchy pop song, bereft of pompous edges.

Despite its relative success on the underground, Mears then decided to leave the band in order to once again concentrate on his work with Youthmovies, who themselves will put out an album later this year.

His departure was purely amicable and after a few months of intense rehearsal the band was back on track and even signed a recording contract with Transgressive Records, affording all of the members who remained at university the luxury of dropping out in order to pursue their dream.

The label's investment was validated throughout 2007, as the Foals forced their way onto the national radar with some aplomb, wowing critics and punters alike with a trio of singles in the form of Mathletics, Balloons and the hugely rated Hummer.

Last year also saw them make their first tentative foray into the US, with a critically-acclaimed performance at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, which many on hand praised as the best show by any artist at the hugely influential industry event. In reality, it is in a live setting where the band truly separates themselves from the chasing pack, with a show so packed with energy and abandon that it borders on the reckless.

From their guerilla gig roots, they have grown into a truly awesome live event, where audiences are worked into a frenzy and it is not unusual to see fire extinguishers being thrown through walls, doors getting kicked off hinges and venues being brought close to the point of collapse.

Last year, the band traveled to Brooklyn, NY, where they set about recording their debut album with producer, and former TV On The Radio Member, Dave Sitek, who has also been a guiding hand to artists such as Beck and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in the past. The eccentric knob-twiddler, who was notably described by one UK newspaper as "reputed to work with a knife and a bottle of whisky in front of him at all times", seemed to embody all that the band required to unlock their distinct musical charm and - with a freshly inked US recording contract with Sub Pop also under their belts - hopes are extremely high that the band's debut album, Antidotes, will be a triumph upon its release this coming March.

Whatever the case, the Foals are certainly coming out of the gates at high speed and if you're lucky enough to be in New York on February 12, you can catch them at the Bowery Ballroom.