Have you heard about Yannis & The Yaw? Well, let us introduce you: They’re the intriguing collaboration of Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis and the late, great Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen.
A longtime fan, Yannis was offered the opportunity to work with Tony in 2016 and jumped at the chance. He flew to Paris to meet up in the studio, which, as you can imagine, looked like a Fela Kuti session from 1972, complete with a bounty of African percussive instruments and analog equipment.
The result is an EP coming in August that will feature “Walk Through Fire,” a track bridging their two earthy worlds.
Yannis comments: “There was an imperative to finish it in a way that I had never felt with another record. 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.”
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