A00-09 15. Foals - Antidotes

The Foals did not like the first master that producer Dave Sitek (of TV on the Radio) did of their debut album Antidotes, coming up with the quote that it "sounded like it was recorded in the Grand Canyon", and subsequently re-mixed it themselves. I would have been intrigued to hear what the Sitek version would have sounded like as the album has more than its fair share of reverb anyway. Another quote from singer/guitarist Yannis Philippakis gives a slightly different perspective: "All the sounds were there, and he added a depth. He messed with the spaces around the sounds so there's this weird ambience on all the tracks." Maybe it was more the case that they liked what he did but wanted it to sound like their own work and not have the trademark stamp of the producer too much.

Where Sitek's influence is obvious is on the appearance of the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, who have also played on TV on the radio records. It is interesting how the brass is used; normally as an extra instrument in the more intense parts of the songs, rather than any attempt.

The guitar playing on the album is unusual, which is a good thing. There are two guitarists in the band Philippakis and Jimmy Smith, but they don't play a single chord between them on the whole album. It is all single notes, normally played very high up on the fretboard, with a rhythmic jagged feel.

Philippakis's vocals are a bit yelpy, which fits well with the fractured  nature of the music, and it is quite hard to make out what he is actually singing most of the time, which is never a bad thing.

The band cite techno as an influence on their sound and while they use conventional instruments, the music has techno like dynamics, in that it often eschews conventional structure and has climaxes and comes downs instead.

Much was made at the time of release about the omission of early singles Hummer and Mathletics ( the title of which presumably resulted in their being labeled Math Rock). It says something of the quality fof the songs replacing them, that they aren't really missed.

Recommended Track: Cassius