Foals’ Yannis Philippakis project Yannis & The Yaw share pulsating single ‘Rain Can’t Reach Us’ feat. Tony Allen

Foals’ Yannis Philippakis has shared the latest song from his new project with the late Tony Allen, Yannis & The Yaw, ‘Rain Can’t Reach Us’.

• READ MORE: Foals’ Yannis Philippakis tells us about The Yaw and his record with Tony Allen: “Our spirits got on”

The track follows ‘Walk Through Fire’ and ‘Under The Strikes’, with all three songs set to feature on the Yannis & The Yaw EP ‘Lagos Paris London’, released on August 30 via Transgressive. You can pre-order/pre-save it here.

In recent years, the singer had been steadily teasing the project, first revealing news of sessions with legendary drummer Allen to NME back in 2017. Allen, who played with both Fela Kuti and The Good, The Bad & The Queen, died in 2020 at the age of 79, but the music had been in development for some time before his passing.

Discussing Allen’s influence on the track, Philippakis said: “We actually referred to ‘Rain Can’t Reach Us’ as ‘The Tornado’ for a long time because it feels like a gale blowing through your house and it’s just cool to hear Tony at the heart of that.

“There’s a chance it could have become a Foals track, but sharing that idea with Tony made it become this other thing. I think that’s really exciting, it’s like putting in random coordinates, getting in your car and driving and not knowing where you’re going to show up. You could be led anywhere.”

NME spoke to Philippakis in Damon Albarn’s 13 Studios in West London earlier this year to discuss finally being able to release the songs he recorded with Allen.

In the interview, the Foals frontman said he felt “unburdened” now the material was being released, and explained that Allen’s passing made it “much more of a serious project” to tackle.

“There should be a feeling of galvanisation, and that all isn’t lost,” he said. “You can create beauty around and outside of things being on fire. The record is soundtracking this feeling of precipice. It doesn’t impart a specific message other than being the soundtrack to the protest. It isn’t didactic in any way – that isn’t my style.”

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