Foals' Yiannis Filippakis Announces New EP With Late Tony Allen, Shares 'Walk Through Fire'

Foals' Yiannis Filippakis Announces New EP With Late Tony Allen, Shares 'Walk Through Fire'

Lagos Paris London The EP is due out August 30 via Transgressive and is credited to Yannis & The Yaw

April 17, 2024

By Mark Redfern

Photo by Kit Monteith

Foals frontman Yiannis Filippakis has announced a new EP he recorded with the late Afrobeat legend Tony Allen and shared his first single, “Walk Through Fire.” The Lagos Paris London The EP is credited to Yannis & The Yaw and is due out on August 30 via Transgressive. Check out the single below, followed by the EP's tracklist and cover art.

Filippakis teamed up with Allen through a mutual friend, recording in a Paris studio in 2026. They recorded over two days alongside Allen's regular collaborators Vincent Taeger (percussion, marimba), Vincent Taurelle (keyboards) and Ludovic Bruni (bass, guitar ). While an EP's worth of material was recorded and songs further developed in subsequent sessions, the project was not completed before scheduling conflicts and COVID restrictions got in the way. And then Allen died in April 2020 at the age of 79. Filippakis remained determined to finish the EP in Allen's honor.

“There was an urgency to finish it in a way I've never felt with another record,” he says in a press release. “There was a deep duty to do it, to finish it as well as possible and to pay him respect by getting it out there. Going through some of the drum takes was an emotional experience because those recordings were some of the last pieces of music he ever worked on. There is an eternal quality to these drum tracks and you feel a continuation of his life and energy through them. He wanted people to hear that and it's good that you can do that for him—but of course it's a little bittersweet.”

The plan is for Filippakis to use the moniker Yannis & The Yaw for future collaborations outside of Foals.

Foals' latest album, Life is yoursreleased in 2022 via ADA/Warner UK Ltd.

Check out our interview with Foals on their 2019 album All that is not saved shall perish – Part 1.

Lagos Paris London Track List:

1. Walk Through Fire
2. The rain cannot reach us
3. Night Green, Heavy Love
4. Under The Strikes
5. Clementine

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