New Foals Track: Spanish Sahara
Foals flung out an announcement today that second album “Total Life Forever” will be released on May 10th, and also premiered on radio the first track from the new record, accompanied by the inevitably agonising jingles and Zane Lowe declaring that it’s “just awesome, man”. Well, he may be right, but more importantly “Spanish Sahara” suggests that Foals may have distanced themselves from the slightly frenetic sound that made them the favourite band of every irritating 15 year old. Faultless as their sound was, having an innocent enough but cringingly excitable teenager going through puberty next to you at gigs was always the worst thing about being a Foals fan. The fact that this is coming from someone who has only just turned 18 can probably only suggest just how excessively testosterone filled / Topman plaid-shirt-wearing their fan base was.
“Spanish Sahara” sounds far more self assured and assertive, wholly uninterested in NME chart placings and sales numbers. In fact, “Spanish Sahara” is almost completely guaranteed to entirely fail to bring Foals to a wider audience (although perhaps it will encourage a more mature one), but there’s no way that that was ever their intention. If there’s any consolation from this, though, aside from it being one of the most brilliant things that they’ve written, it’s the knowledge that if they have even remotely sustained this sort of focus and maturity throughout the whole album, they could be onto a bit of a classic, not simply the fleeting and forgettable sales success that has become quite common (hello, The Wombats; we haven’t forgotten about you yet, unfortunately). Actually, Zane said it all: “Just awesome, man.”
Foals – Spanish Sahara (Mount Kimbie Remix)
PS: You’ve no idea how hard I had to try to not mention the xx (woops). Oh well, hopefully you’ll see why I tried.
PPS: For the exceptionally organised, May 3rd will see the release of “This Orient”, the first single from the album. As if you’re going to remember.
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March 1st, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Yep – i’m getting that xx reference loud and clear…
No bad thing. Thanx for posting
March 2nd, 2010 at 12:33 am
i don’t know if you remember us discussing before how topman checked shirts and NME bands have become synonymous, but it definitely comes across in your write-up. the new song is fantastic, and agree with the xx comment as far as the dynamics go. its been fairly clear from all the demos foals have put out recently that they were going this way, and i have to say i love it.
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Yeah I do remember that conversation – plaid shirted clones have become a personal enemy of mine
Yeah you did sort of get this feeling from the demos, but it was hard to know if they were the entire band or just Yannis messing around.
March 2nd, 2010 at 12:52 am
How do I get this to download?
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:40 am
“is almost completely guaranteed to entirely fail to bring Foals to a wider audience” … hmmm.. is it me or does their new song sound alot more mainstream than previous stuff? .. still like it though
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:14 pm
[...] was good to see a new Foals track posted on Not Many Experts today, taken from a radio rip from Zane Lowe’s (that guy gets all the good exclusives!) BBC [...]
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Lord Wilson, I wouldn’t have said so at all! The complete opposite… “Balloons” and “Hummer” were both enormous indie hits in the UK. “Spanish Sahara” sounds more like the underappreciated but beautiful music that labels like 4AD put out.
Sorry, Bri, but I have just removed the download link. I’m sure that you have probably already found it elsewhere, anyway.
January 22nd, 2011 at 4:17 am
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