Foals’ Yannis Philippakis has been working with Tony Allen, apparently

Want an update on Foals’ new album? Course you do! This probably isn’t quite the update you’re expecting though.

Foals are heading off to Citadel 2017 and Benicassim later this year, but according to Yannis they haven’t been working on a new record. Instead, he told NME that he’d been working with Fela Kuti’s drummer Tony Allen.

He said: “I’ve been writing with Tony Allen, Fela Kuti’s drummer.” He continued: “I started doing some tracks with him last year and then I was on tour. So I went back to finish them in Paris. So he’s writing a record and hopefully some of the tracks we’ve been working on will be on that album.”

That clears that up then. What’s it like to work with a legendary drummer though? “It was awesome,” Yannis said. “He’s 76. He smokes hash all day. He drinks whiskey. He basically invented a genre with Fela Kuti. He’s like an octopus on the drumkit. He’s an incredible drummer. It’s been nice just to be creative.”

Is any of this creative output going to end up on the new Foals record then? “I’ve been writing bits here and there, but I don’t know if it’s for Foals yet. We’re not in a hurry.” Well, who knows? Perhaps this will all lead to Foals taking on more of an Afrobeat sound for their next record…

Watch Foals’ video for ‘What Went Down’ below.