Foals: Antidotes [TRANSGRESSIVE]

Why you'll love it

Transgressive repressed Antidotes on 140g vinyl for the album's 15th anniversary. It reached No. 3 on the UK Albums Chart and spun off four singles.

This edition

• 15th anniversary repress
• 140g vinyl

About the album

Most bands record their drums in a studio. Foals tried an alleyway, on cassette recorders, then ran the results through outboard gear back inside Stay Gold Studios in Brooklyn in the summer of 2007. TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek produced, adding what Yannis Philippakis called a weird ambience around every sound, and the band finished the mix in London with Mike Crossey.

"Cassius" and "Balloons" are all clipped, interlocking guitars and skittering hi-hats, "Red Socks Pugie" is a nervy singalong, "Olympic Airways" floats, and "Electric Bloom" stretches out into a slow-building groove. Philippakis, Jack Bevan, Jimmy Smith, Walter Gervers and Edwin Congreave play like one tightly wound machine.

In the US it came out through Sub Pop, and it set Foals on the road to much bigger stages. Members of Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra played the brass and were told not to point their horns at the microphones, which in most studios would earn you a quiet word, and here earned a debut album.

Also at Kops: more Foals on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Transgressive (cat# TRANS071LP), a reissue of the 2008 album.