FOALS CCTV SESSIONS ARE REVEALING

Foals are one of those very few bands that age wonderfully. That grow, develop their craft and still sound as interesting as they did way back when – in this case, 2005 with the explosive Antidotes.

Experimental and always nudging the boundary of their sounds, the brilliant spiky indie of their infancy has evolved into huge soundscapes of complexity and melody.

And alongside their album releases over the years, the Oxford four-piece have posted stripped-back versions of their material in a series they’ve coined CCTV Sessions.

Hosted on their official Youtube channel, the CCTV sessions have become hugely successful and a collection of the recordings ended up being included as a bonus release with 2015’s excellent What Went Down LP, such is their enduring popularity.

This week Foals posted four new songs to the CCTV feed and they are superb watching. Dreaming Of, Exits, Neptune and Sunday are all huge fan favourites taken from their 2019 LP Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, and given the lo-fi drum machine treatment.

“It’s cool how dusty and primitivesounding some of them are when we flip the aesthetic of the songs on their head,” lead singer Yannis Philippakis told NME this week. “Often they’re a more tender, laid-back, stoner-y version of the track. People have just connected with them.”

They’ll certainly serve to whet your appetite for more Foals material which Yannis promises is on the way very soon.

“I wouldn’t say that the oven has reached its proper temperature yet, but the ingredients are being gathered in the kitchen,” he said. “We’ll start making a record this year, but I don’t know when it will be ready. We’re going to start putting our heads together and there are lots of exciting and promising starts.”

■ CCTV Sessions are available to view now on the Foals Youtube channel.