#foals of 2020

[iero]

You guys ever think about how if you weren't in a certain place at a certain time, in a certain predicament at a certain time you would have never heard one of your favorites bands to this day. Because I do. I think about it all the time.

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Life Is Yours • Wake Me Up • 2am • 2001 • (summer sky) • Flutter • Looking High • Under The Radar • Crest Of The Wave • The Sound • Wild Green

Spotify ♪ YouTube

[batri-jopa]

Fluffy

Here is this guy's family, like I promised😊

When size of an adult pegasus is like miniature pincher - a foal is like a mouse deer

[reikunrei]

*sighs longingly* oh how i wish you call could have been mine...

[rabbitcruiser]

National Help A Horse Day 

On of mankind’s closest companions, horses require lots of gentle, loving care to thrive, which is why horse lovers take part in National Help a Horse Day.

No horsing around – today is an opportunity for you to be a good ‘neeeiiigh-bor’ as it’s National Help A Horse Day! This important occasion aims to raise awareness of the struggles that equines all over the world face and contribute to efforts saving them from cruel and inhumane situations.

Horses are very distinctive animals, well known for their grace and beauty. While there over 300 different breeds, they can be grouped into three main types – “hot bloods”, which are fast and bold, “cold bloods”, which are strong and calm, and “warm bloods”, which are a blend of the two and tend to be good for riding.

They can be flighty animals and scare easily, which also means they’re able to sleep standing up in case a quick getaway is needed! A horse’s teeth are incredibly long and gradually emerge into the mouth (a process known as “erupting”) over the course of its life to replace what’s been ground down by chewing. And of course they’re excellent runners, able to move in a variety of gaits including trotting, cantering and full-out galloping!

History of National Help A Horse Day

Alongside the loyal dog, horses are often referred to as man’s best friend, and it’s no wonder! Over the course of human history, these majestic beasts have been the backbone of civilization and have done much of the heavy lifting in human endeavors, often literally!

Tamed around 5 millennia ago, equines have been crucial across a wide range of areas including transport, agriculture, warfare and ceremonial occasions. More recently they’ve also become a staple in the world of sport, have been used as therapy animals and, perhaps above all, have won many a heart as faithful companions.

And yet there is also a dark side to our history with horses, with mankind often treating these dedicated animals with cruelty and contempt. In recent years, stories of their neglect and abandonment have also continued to rise as some owners have found the cost of looking after them simply too much to cope with.

National Help A Horse Day was started by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) in 2014, but its origin dates back much further to the creation of the ASPCA itself. It all started in 1863 when Henry Bergh, an American diplomat posted in Russia, saved a horse from being abused by a carriage driver. The owner responsible was arrested on 26 April that year for his mistreatment of the animal, the first time this had ever occurred, and Bergh went on to found the ASPCA in 1866. National Help A Horse Day therefore honors this significant date for the ASPCA and horses everywhere.

The society now hosts an annual Help a Horse Home Challenge to mark the occasion – the challenge is a nationwide competition for horse shelter and rescue centers, with the winners receiving a generous grant to further their work. And National Help A Horse Day has spread both in the US and internationally, with people all over the world celebrating these amazing equines and raising awareness of the cruelty and neglect they can be subject to.

Why horses need our help

Given their loyal and caring nature, it’s no surprise that horses are a popular pet. Yet due to their size and complex needs, they can be pretty expensive to care for. Sadly this leads to many horses being neglected or abandoned, sometimes by unfeeling owners but often by well-intentioned ones who simply no longer have the resources to cope. Neglected horses may lack the sustenance, shelter, medical treatment and enrichment they need for high-quality and fulfilled lives. Some may even be abandoned elsewhere and left to their own devices in a practice known as “fly-grazing”.

Pet horses are only part of the issue, however. Perhaps far more of a threat are unscrupulous breeders and dealers who churn out these animals by the dozen with only their pockets in mind and no thought for the horses’ welfare. This is why stricter animal protection laws and regulations are needed to prevent such heartless exploitation of these creatures.

Sport is another area in which horses can be maltreated – horse racing, for example, can be dangerous for the animals, with many put down if they are injured as they are then considered a mere expense. Similarly, working horses are at risk of abuse and exploitation, again by businesses determined to make a profit over all other considerations. Rescue centers and sanctuaries are therefore vital for helping horses, by saving them from harsh conditions and providing them with safe new homes.

The horse meat trade is another controversial area, with many opposed to its consumption. It’s illegal in various parts of the world, particularly the US, and over the years various concerns have been raised about the quality and source of the meat.

Wild horses are also at risk. Well-loved as a symbol of freedom, there are issues with how overpopulation is managed, with “mustangs” in the US often captured and placed in holding pens. Humane solutions are needed to ensure that wild equines can thrive as well as their domesticated counterparts.

How to celebrate National Help A Horse Day

National Help A Horse Day is your chance to make a real positive contribution to the care and protection of horses. Send a donation to an equine charity, sanctuary or rescue center of your choice or volunteer for one near you if you can spare the time! Another great way to bring about change is to sign petitions demanding better care for these faithful friends who have served us so well over the centuries.

If you come across a neglected or abandoned horse, then be sure to get in touch with a local animal welfare organization who will be able to rehabilitate and rehome it. And if you have the space and inclination, why not consider fostering or even adopting a horse yourself?

Take time out of your day to find out more about these charming creatures and the threats they face – be sure to share what you find out with family, friends, colleagues and your social media following so that many more people will be inspired to give vulnerable horses the help they need. Check out some of the many excellent horse documentaries available, such as Running Wild: The Life of Dayton O’Hyde, which follows a cowboy’s struggle to protect wild horses in the US, and Equus: Story of the Horse, which details mankind’s relationship with these animals over the years.

If you’re lucky enough to live near horses or perhaps even have a four-legged companion of your own, then National Help A Horse Day is a great opportunity to show them some extra love. Share an apple, carrot or sugar cube with a local horse you know and take them for a ride or trek (all with its owner’s permission of course!).Be sure to spread the word this National Help A Horse Day to give equines everywhere the best chance at a happy, healthy future. All they need is a helping hand (after all, most of them are already at least 10 hands high!) to enjoy a better life.

Source

[raspberry-and-friends]

Name: Princess Twilight Sparkle

Gender: Trans female (she/her)

Sexuality: Bisexual

Partner(s): Captain Tempest Shadow/Fizzlepop Berrytwist Sparkle [PAST—DECEASED], Princess Luna Sparkle [CURRENT]

Children: Princess Raspberry Sparkle (19) and Princess Ophelia Supernova Sparkle (16)

Headcanons and disclaimers below the cut 👇👇

💜 Serves as a positive role model for young foals struggling with their gender identities, even going so far as to rebuild Golden Oaks Library as a housing facility for trans/gay youths cast out by their families. This was actually Plan B—Plan A involved adopting them all into her own family, which Luna didn’t allow for… obvious reasons.

💜 Rarely ever wears her “princess” crown—the status makes her a tad uncomfortable—and chooses to appear as down to earth to the public as she can. Sometimes she even wishes she was never made into an alicorn in the first place... Having an entire nation’s eyes on you at all times certainly does a number on a pony’s mental stability, that’s for sure. Though she wouldn’t trade her fate for all the bits in Equestria, Twilight never truly got used to the role, even after years of training and practice.

💜 Started crushing on her future wife, Princess Luna, around the time of S2:E4, “Luna Eclipsed”. This quickly subsided after getting together with her first wife, Tempest Shadow, though after her passing the grieving widow slowly rekindled her love for the Princess of the Night.

💜 Struggled with a form of GAD since fillyhood. Her and Fluttershy helped each other develop healthy coping mechanisms for their anxieties over the years. She does still have her moments—being an official public authority figure in Equestria never ceases to cause her intense worry and stress—though fidgeting with her wedding ring certainly does help ; )

***DISCLAIMER: In this AU, The princesses DIDN’T hand off their powers to Twilight, and still remain the primary rulers of Equestria during the course of this story. The illustrations and writing (the latter of which has since been revised to fix previously missed grammatical errors and to more closely align with my current headcanons) were done back in 2020-2021 and posted to my now-inactive DeviantArt account. The signature ‘Hun’ reflects the name I went by at the time, Hunter.***

[artyfartyliz]

februpony 2024 day 15: foal

the littlest apple

(day 14) | (day 16)

(day 15 2020) | (day 15 2023)

[halfwayriight]

Oh, I've waited so long On the slow shores of England To sing one last song So come row me away On black rivers and rainbows to Neptune Where I can stay

NEPTUNE — Foals (2020)

[schleichoftheday]

Today's Schleich is:

83032 Mustang Foal [2020]

[correlance]

Art of Alastor as a Boucle Unicorn with deer features that I commissioned back in 2020 from my best friend, Dana Veitinger, a professional artist, illustrator, and animator. Dana and I met years ago through HARPG (Horse Art Roleplaying Game) on DeviantART.

See below the cut for a full explanation on "Boucle Alastor", as well as more related art and design pieces by Dana V. and other artists.

Some background: From 2017 to 2022-2023, I was highly active in Boucle Unicorns, a fantasy equine D&D art and pen-and-paper roleplaying game. In the tradition of "ponifying" characters, as seen with the TV show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP: FiM), people who participated in Boucles created unicorn OCs, as well as variations of characters from other IPs in unicorn form. The group also revolves around breeding; specifically, using a breeding roller that took years for the group to create that auto-randomizes breeding rolls.

Now, normally, Boucle Unicorns look like your standard fantasy unicorns, with various mutations and variations that you could choose, such as lion manes, gemstone horns, etc. I initially joined the group in April 2017 due to the group offering a limited-edition Lapin mane, or bunny-ears-and-tail, for the month of Easter. However, in August 2017, the group introduced one of the biggest changes to the breed: Corrupted, a super-rare deformity that would turn your Boucle Unicorn into an eldritch abomination, or a "cursed" version, of itself.

To this end, one of the administrators, Tigglesaurus, introduced the first Corrupted: Doom, based on Sleipnir from Norse mythology. In order to get your own Corrupted, you had to breed a normal mare to Doom, and hope that, through chance, the breeding roller would roll for the foal to inherit the Corrupted deformity; that is, of course, if the breeding was successful. As many group users started breeding to Doom, the group made it harder to breed Corrupted foals, as the deformity was supposed to be rare. The rules were changed to this:

"Corruption is an incredibly rare group of birth defects, and their ways of expressing is largely unknown. It seem to warp the bodies and sometimes the minds of the Boucles, and while they do not have special magic types or abilities some seem to be prone to their magic backfiring. A Corrupted Boucle will always reflect the phenotype it has; for example, a Corrupted Muffet would have a spider theme! If an Ancients' Blessing [from the gods] is bestowed upon a Corrupted Boucle, the Corrupted [curse] is removed!"

Breeding Corrupteds:

All Boucles that inherit Corruption also roll for an extra defect, as well as any others inherited from the parents (i.e. blind, deaf, etc.).

Only 50% of breedings to normal Boucles succeed, as Corrupted Boucles quite often scare away their partners [due to their fearsome appearances], or are not very fertile. 

Breeding one Corrupted to another Corrupted has a 75% rate of a successful breeding.

Even if the breeding is successful between a Corrupted and a non-Corrupted, and a foal is produced, there is still only a 25% chance that they also inherit Corruption (50% chance if both parents are Corrupted).

If you breed a Blessed Boucle to a Corrupted Boucle, and it inherits both, the Blessing will cancel out ('heal') the corruption, [as the Boucle deities hate Corruption, and Corrupted Boucles].

I helped my friend, Dana, breed one of the first successful Corrupted offspring from Doom: Pennywise, based on Pennywise the Clown from Stephen King's IT. However, when the Hazbin Hotel pilot episode came out on YouTube on 28 October 2019, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at breeding Alastor the Radio Demon as a Corrupted Boucle into the Boucle Unicorns roleplaying game.

Now, for those familiar with Boucle Unicorns, and how their breeding roller works, this was an exceedingly difficult task, due to how inheritance works in the game. For one, the mutations needed to create "Boucle Alastor" could not simply be ported as a starter Boucle Unicorn into the game; you had to specifically breed a certain combination of mutations into a foal to get the result you desired. This means having to submit a breeding, and hoping that the "odds were ever in your favor" of you rolling all of the mutations you want.

On top of this, in order to breed a Corrupted foal, you had to breed a Corrupted Boucle to a normal Boucle, and hope that, one, the breeding didn't fail outright (50/50 odds of success/fail); two, that the breeding rolled each mutation that you wanted (50% chance of each for heterozygous); and three, that you also rolled the 25% chance of the foal inheriting the Corrupted defect from their parent.

Breeding Alastor into the game itself also took a lot of careful planning, and selecting a sire and dam who could pass the desired trait(s) to produce Alastor's genotype and phenotype. When I say that summoning Lucifer himself through a demonic summoning ritual would've probably been easier, I mean it. I was lucky in the sire department; Dana, who owned Pennywise, gave me unlimited breedings to him, as I had helped her breed Pennywise into the game successfully in the first place. However, finding a dam was harder.

For one, one of the mutations needed to create Alastor in the game was "Extended Fawn Rayé", a gene that gave a Boucle foal deer-like features, such as antlers, a deer tail, etc. However, as Extended Fawn Rayé was a limited-edition Christmas mutation, I had to find a mare with the gene who I could breed to Pennywise to combine it with Corrupted. I eventually got two breedings to Tropdetache, a mare with the Extended Fawn Rayé gene, as well as "Sabertooth Félin", an additional gene that could give a foal sabretooth cat-like fangs.

All in all, it took months to organize, plan, and roll the breeding. A few months after the pilot episode aired in October 2019, I finally sent in the breeding between Pennywise and Tropdetache in January 2020. Why January 2020? Well, you had to breed during the month of January in order to get a red birthstone for the foal. Since I just had two breedings to Tropdetache, I had to hope and pray that the randomized roller gave me the genes that I needed to breed Alastor.

There were low odds of success, but the breeding, much to my surprise, worked...mostly. The breeding rolled in the 50% range for "success" (i.e. produced a foal), and I rolled an amazing 50% "success" for each of these genes: "Vampire (1) Noir Merle (2) Winternight Nuage (3) Jeté (4) Féerie (5) Haunted Joker (6) Plumes (7) Extended Fawn Rayé (8) Sabretooth Félin (9)". That's nine genes in total, with about a 50% success roll on each (1 in 512 probability).

There was just one big, glaring problem: The foal didn't inherit the Corrupted gene from Pennywise (25% odds, so lower than 50%), which was one of the main points of the breeding to begin with. However, I was able to find a loophole: By bestowing an Ancient's Blessing of Blood on the foal through another in-game reward, I could have the foal mimic Corrupted, without it actually being Corrupted. Thus, "Alastor the Boucle Unicorn" was born in the game.

Note that some genes were technically "Christmas", but because the foal also inherited Vampire and the Ancients' Blessing of Blood, I could "twist" the Christmas genes to be more Halloween-ish. For example, "Winternight Nuage" became a blood moon here instead.

From October 2019 to September 2020, when Alastor was finally bred, designed, and referenced, the entire process took about a year. Dana and I spent another few years levelling up Alastor in the game.

Boucle Alastor's magical abilities, which had to be earned in-game, with Alastor being a disciple of Sanguis, the Deity of Blood:

Fire Magic (ability to produce and control fire, from god Ignis)

Blood Magic (ability to control blood, from god Sanguis)

Dark Magic (power over shadows and darkness, from god Nox)

Electricity Magic (ability to control electricity, from god Fulmen)

Time Magic (ability to control time and flow, from god Tempus)

Telepathy Magic (ability to read minds, from god Animo)

Creator Magic (ability to create objects, from god Aedifex)

Official group description for Sanguis:

Not only did Boucle Alastor become even more overpowered than canon Alastor ended up, but Boucle Alastor became a god himself. A lesser one, to be sure, but still a powerful being blessed by the gods.

In turn, Alastor also created his own slew of offspring, including the lovely Anenome, designed by the artist Memuii, also blood-themed:

Eventually, since Dana and I both ship Charlie/Alastor (Charlastor), I was able to breed a mate for Alastor in the game: "Princess of Hell". Ironically, Boucle Charlie did inherit the Corrupted gene from her father, so you have a Blessed Boucle, favored by the higher gods, paired with a Corrupted Boucle, with the gods hating Corrupteds.

There is another small irony: Charlie is taller than Alastor, officially speaking, per the randomized official rolls. Alastor is 16 hands high at the shoulder, whereas Charlie is 17-18 hands high, more like Lilith.

I'll edit or reply to this post later with Dana's art of Boucle Charlie.

[boonesfarmsangria]

If you spoke to Yannis Philippakis over the past seven years, chances are he would have mentioned a mythical, long-rumoured collaboration with the late, great Tony Allen. “I wanted to find a way to say goodbye to him within the music. It’s what felt right to do” 

“I would play the music at parties late at night,” the Foals frontman tells Rolling Stone UK from his Peckham studio, a cosy room packed full of synths and guitars that has birthed large parts of the new EP and countless Foals tracks. “My friends were sick of hearing it unfinished, but then after everything that happened… I felt a duty to finish it.” 

In late 2016, Philippakis had just come off a lengthy and draining tour behind Foals’ fourth album, What Went Down, the record that solidified the Oxford band as one of the most important UK guitar acts of a generation. As soon as he stepped off the plane, the opportunity was then presented to him to collaborate with the legendary Allen, an Afrobeat icon and close collaborator of the great Fela Kuti. 

“I went to Paris reluctantly because I’d been broken from this tour, and I’d done enough collaborations with people to know that it can often be quite a deflating experience that leaves you feeling quite cold,” he says. “The fact that this wasn’t the case with Tony was really, really exciting. There’s something that did just click in the room.” 

The trip to Paris was framed as Philippakis being one of a group of collaborators to go and work with Allen for an album where every track was a collaboration with a different musician. “I’d be like, ‘When’s Kevin Parker coming over?’” laughs Philippakis. “But I stopped asking after a while.” The pair ended up writing three tracks on the first day they were together. 

“I wasn’t really sure what would happen, and then the idea of this broader collaborative record stalled, but we were getting on well and wanted to do more,” he remembers. While the pair realised they wanted it to become a bigger project, Philippakis’ commitments with Foals and other projects stalled the pair’s progress. Then the pandemic happened, and it wrangled with Philippakis’ “fear of things remaining unfinished”, which he describes as “such a disappointing place for something to reside”. 

The idea of the project remaining unfinished was then amplified by the shock death of Allen in April 2020 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm at the age of 79. “It brought a whole other barrage of emotions to deal with,” reflects Philippakis. “It felt like this music would remain a myth for a long time.” 

Kit Monteith

Four years after the death of Allen, this much-teased and near-mythical music was finally announced in the form of Lagos Paris London, the debut EP from Philippakis’ new project Yannis & The Yaw. The five tracks on the EP are an irresistibly funky delight, bringing together two instantly recognisable musicians with no compromise from either. 

Even before Philippakis’ one-of-a-kind vocals come in on opening track ‘Walk Through Fire’, you know it’s him through the choppy, unique guitar tones that have defined Foals since day one. Behind him, Allen’s outstanding rhythm is equally identifiable. “The way that I play the guitar is a bit of a giveaway,” laughs Philippakis. “You can hear Foals’ DNA in this music. Because of my limitations as a guitarist, I play a certain way. Then obviously Tony. Tony plays like Tony. There’s only one Tony Allen.” 

Of the special and almost unexpected creative alchemy between the pair, Philippakis adds, “We’re both in the room and both dancing with each other, but there’s no necessity to dilute the intensity of each of the presences.” It’s heard on the slippery, dramatic ‘Night Green, Heavy Love’ and euphoric ‘Clementine’, the latter in particular serving as a delicious burst of pure joy. 

After Allen’s death, the feelings of grief and work on another Foals album kept the collaborative music in a box only brought out to tease friends with at parties. As time went on, though, the niggling feeling of dissatisfaction at leaving this music unfinished — as well as a desire to let the world hear some of the last music Allen worked on — led Philippakis to pick the project back up. 

“There had been a sense of duty to finish it anyway, but once he passed away, I realised that it really needed to be.” This sentiment was matched by a genuine excitement from the musician about what he had created with Allen. “For people who are fans of Tony’s, it’s an exciting collaboration to hear. You hear Tony Allen in a way that is different to his Afrobeat records, it’s different to the Jeff Mills stuff, it’s different to The Good, The Bad & the Queen. It’s some of the heaviest and angular stuff he’s been on. 

“It was an exciting, amazing thing that happened, and nobody had got to hear it,” Philippakis says. He remembers thinking, “We should put this out, partly to celebrate how versatile and amazing Tony is, but also to show this strange coupling of two people you wouldn’t necessarily predict, writing from different stages of their lives and from different cultures.” 

Ed Miles

Lagos Paris London would have never been completed, according to Philippakis, without the assistance of Allen’s engineers Vincent Taeger and Vincent Taurelle, affectionately known as The Vincents. Taeger served as the musical director for a number of memorial concerts for Allen, and they both play an ongoing role in the drummer’s legacy. 

After work on the music restarted following Allen’s death, the duo proved a vital connection between Philippakis and his late collaborator, as he explains. “I couldn’t have done it without them, and I wouldn’t have wanted to. They knew him intimately and acted as a bridge for me to be able to get on with Tony. I don’t even feel like he was super aware or particularly buzzed that I was there when I first arrived. I think somebody had talked to him about [Foals] in order for him to agree, but once we started playing, he started to get it.” 

While the basis of the music was already laid down from Philippakis and Allen’s short time together in the Paris studio, much of the production and the mixing of the songs was still to be completed. He particularly credits The Vincents with assisting him on mixing tracks and editing Allen’s drum parts. “It felt like quite a delicate thing to do,” says Philippakis. “It needed to be done correctly and with respect, but they also simply knew how Tony would want things to sound.” 

Philippakis says he didn’t feel he needed permission from The Vincents to finish and release the music — the initial ideas were brought into the studio by him — but felt a warmth and encouragement from their enthusiasm about sharing it with the world. “It made me feel like we were doing it for the correct reasons and that it was being finished in the right way,” says Philippakis. 

While much of Foals’ music features emotional and autobiographical lyrics from Philippakis, he wanted to take the opportunity to present a different slant on his storytelling with this music. At first, he expected to just be playing guitar and welcoming guest vocalists, but eventually got drawn towards the mic. 

“It didn’t feel like this record with Tony was the vessel for a personal, emotional kind of investigation,” reflects Philippakis. “When I had the first stab at doing the vocals with Tony there, there was definitely a dialogue between us about where the lyrics should live. It wouldn’t have felt right to be combing the detritus of my private life in these songs. There was a shared idea of where they should be.” 

These conversations led to lyrics that Philippakis doesn’t consider overly political, but to be “engaging outwardly with social issues, and what it means to be somebody alive in a city, in a society, in a population”. At the time of recording, Paris was experiencing a wave of industrial action, and Philippakis remembers walking to the studio past “huge mounds of rubbish everywhere”. “You had people very elegantly trying to sway through all this trash,” he says. “The juxtaposition of those two things and trying to write a record in the midst of it made me feel like these could be the lampposts for where the lyrics should be — out of one’s own mind and in the streets.” 

If one piece of introspection makes it into the album’s lyrical content, it’s in ‘Under the Strikes’, a song led by a giddy and fantastic horn line. Philippakis was finishing the track after Allen’s death and wanted the instrumentation to melt away and just leave Allen’s drums on their own “as a coda or farewell to him”. 

“I once thought we had time to spare,” Philippakis sings in lyrics he wrote after the passing of his friend as those unquestionable drums continue to rumble on. “I wanted to find a way of saying goodbye to him within the music,” he says. “It’s what felt right to do.” 

Yannis & the Yaw is, Philippakis is quick to point out, not the start of a solo career for the musician. What began as him working on Allen’s record ended up morphing into a more collaborative process, with Philippakis leading the songwriting. “There could have even been a world in which it would have been Foals featuring Tony Allen. It was open-ended, but quite quickly we realised it was a shared endeavour. If Tony was around now, maybe it would be called something slightly different, but it’s hard for me to know how he would have wanted it.” 

Lagos Paris London exists in the world as a five-track EP, but Philippakis says the excitement and creativity was there to make an entire album with Allen. It is being released as Yannis & The Yaw as an acknowledgement of the collaborative process with Allen and The Vincents, and to leave the door open for another collaborative project under the name with different musicians. 

Yaw is defined as a ‘swerve’ or ‘twist’, and Philippakis sees it as a signifier of the “orbiting collaborators” that birthed this project and will likely do so again in the future. His potential ideas for the future of the project include working with musicians from his native Greece, as well as something with Malian musicians he’s in touch with. “My listening habits in the last few years haven’t been that aligned to contemporary Western music or pop or indie music,” he explains. “I’m much more interested in learning about music from other cultures.” 

The release of the collaborative EP with Allen arrives during a time that Philippakis refers to as a “fallow year” for Foals, who last released an album in 2022 with Life Is Yours. Though he yearns to return to the road at some point, he is currently gaining excitement from tending to his garden at home in south London and writing music for musicals and plays. Upcoming projects include a score for The Other Place with playwright Alexander Zeldin, who he worked with last year on theatre piece The Confessions. “I get to write really heavy, savage, melancholic, ambient pieces,” he smiles of the welcome change of pace. 

For Foals, he sees their break as an opportunity to not slide into complacency and re-tread their steps. “We’ve been so productive and a victim of our own success,” he says of his band. “I find it baffling how productive we’ve been with Foals considering the touring. It’s been constantly fertile since we were 19. I am excited to do more but it’s important to have this brief inhalation and to look around and find out where we’re at.” 

Ed Miles

For now, the release of Lagos Paris London serves as the closing of a chapter in Philippakis’ creative life that has spanned a decade and is intertwined with memories, grief and joy. It’s released in memory of the incomparable Allen, a drummer and musical pioneer whose genius is written all across these five songs. 

“The first people that told me the news were The Vincents,” remembers Philippakis. “It was sudden. He hadn’t been ill; it just happened in a day. Even though he was old, it was surprising.” Even more than the sudden impossibility of finishing this music and losing a dear friend, Philippakis mourned the inability to go on tour with Allen around the music’s release, something the pair discussed animatedly while writing together. 

“We got on well in a gig environment. Whenever he’d play in London, I’d go and see him and we’d drink whisky,” he remembers with a smile. Philippakis will play a trio of shows in Amsterdam, Paris and London with the Yaw later this year, featuring musicians from the Lagos Paris London sessions and others from his wider creative orbit, all in service to the memory of his collaborator. 

“He was a larger-than-life character,” he says of Allen. “It was galvanising in the sense that we had to finish this music. We made something beautiful and imperfect and unfinished. If anything good was going to come from this, we had to finish it.” 

Taken from the August/September issue of Rolling Stone UK – you can buy it here now. 

Interview || Rolling Stone UK || Will Richards

[himbohotline]

" * THEY WON'T GIVE ME THE SPEAKER!!! " 🦒💿🎶🔋💦 Name ~ Cassius or Cas Age ~ Young adult Height ~ 7'8 Pronouns ~ He/Him Cassius is an awkward giraffe who likes music that his friends think is SHIT (fair), energy drinks and clubbing, he's sort of always in the state of an identity crisis. I based him off how I was and how I wanted to be in 2019-2020 and pushed it a bit. I also named him after one of my favourite songs, especially at the time, Cassius by Foals. I'm very proud of this reference sheet as messy as it is, I actually used som anatomy references for once and it turned out well so, yay! If I ever get anyone to draw him, apart from his head/face markings I don't really care if the spots are super accurate, since I cba to do that myself LMAO

[stvlti]

But I Know We'll Meet Again | a Protagoneil fanmix

love songs for The Protagonist/Neil from Tenet (2020)

i didn't even know that i'd made this playlist public. i guess i thought i'd keep adding more songs to it. this is as complete as it'll ever be. Playlist title from the Vera Lynn track.

► TRACKS

See You Again - Tyler, the Creator // No One Said This Would Be Easy - The Postmarks // When Time Was On Their Side - Husky Rescue // If I Had A Gun... - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds // Blue - Troye Sivan // Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back - My Chemical Romance // Maybe We're Meant To Be Alone - Bad Suns // Lonely Hunter - Foals // Same Soul - PVRIS // Lovesong - The Cure // Mariners Apartment Complex - Lana Del Rey // We'll Meet Again - Vera Lynn // Historians - Lucy Dacus

[sketch-shepherd-art]

Old traditional art from 2020, I finally have an excuse to post it now that I have a new better scanner

A bunch of my MLP OC’s in my next gen universe during the epilogue era in FIM’s series finale. Cherry and Tide are still happily married with their foals Water Wave and Kikyo Bud all grown up.

Lightning Bolt and Sugar Zip are also happily married and had their foals recently. Reminder that since Cherry Flower and Lightning Bolt are adoptive siblings, Kikyo Bud + Water Wave and Rain Shadow + Jet Streak would be honorary cousins

I haven’t yet designed a future version of Tidal Wave even though she’s still part of Cherry’s friend group. Guess I just haven’t thought of a good design for her yet, idk I’ll think of something

[welovelofi]

Make Friends розпочали свій спільний шлях 6 років тому, об’єднавши групу друзів, які поділилися інтересом до сучасної інді-поп-музики. Натхненний інді-денс-панком «Antidotes»-Era Foals і мелодійним альт-попом Bombay Bicycle Club, гурт поєднав ці впливи в дебютному міні-альбомі «Hi».

Міні-альбом створив улюблений сингл «Ellie», який став улюбленим шанувальниками, їхній перший трек, який набрав понад півмільйона програвань, і він дав їм можливість виступити в прямому ефірі BBC Introducing у престижній Maida Vale Studios наприкінці 2019 року.

Підбадьорені сесією, Make Friends почали писати свій наступний набір релізів, що породили треки «When Nothing's Said» і улюблену «Knowing Makes It Worse» на Amazing Radio. Запровадження національного блокування призвело до того, що група досягла найгарячішої творчої смуги на сьогоднішній день, вийшовши з витонченим грувом синглу «Hesitate» і релізом «Kung Fu» з великими рифами. Наприкінці 2020 року вони написали новий міні-альбом із матеріалом, перший реліз «Sleep Sound» вийшов 14 травня 2021 року, а за ним 2 липня вийшов «Call Me Out».

Незважаючи на те, що у 2020 році не було живої музики, Make Friends підписали контракт із новим захоплюючим живим агентством Маршалла (Marshall Live Agency), яке вже забронювало національний тур на кінець року, працюючи разом з деякими з найкращих промоутерів Великобританії ( DHP, крупним планом). Гурт також заброньовано для кількох виступів на підтримці з King No-One з LAB Records під час їхнього осіннього туру, і вони вже виступали на живих трансляціях Scruff of The Neck на Twitch перед понад 3500 людьми. Цього року вони також планують зіграти на кількох британських фестивалях, включаючи Dot To Dot і Wild Paths.

[trailridingadventures]

Sylvie -Tripe B, NV Mustang

I won the bid on tag # 7292 and picked her up in June 2023. She is the 2nd mustang I worked with. She is a 2017 mustang mare from Triple B, NV. Rounded up in 2020. She was more difficult than Ernie. She is titled so she is officially mine and I plan to keep her for awhile (probably forever). She had a foal in holding and I was able to find photos (foal has been adopted)