Oxford indie rock stalwarts Foals have announced the departure of longstanding keyboardist Edwin Congreave, with their recent performance at All Points East festival marking the band’s last with its current lineup.
Present on all of the band’s six studio albums to date – from the squelching staccato lines of Antidotes to the atmospheric and enveloping soundscapes of their 2019 Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost series – Congreave joined the fold in 2006, bringing a club culture influence to the melting pot of math rock, Afrobeat and beyond that defined Foals during their idiosyncratic and hotly tipped infancy.
In an announcement on Foals’ social media accounts Congreave elaborates on his decision to leave the band, outlining imminent plans to embark upon a postgraduate degree in economics at Cambridge University and hopes to contribute to the mitigation of climate change in the future. Meanwhile Foals confirm that they have begun writing new music as a trio.
Read the band and Congreave’s respective statements below.
“We’re sad to say that we played our final show with Edwin Congreave as a member of Foals at All Points East festival in London. It was a helluva way to go out…
After 15 years of sweet music making & surfing the globe together he’s decided to hang up his musical boots to pursue other avenues of life. We met at a cocktail bar one sultry night in Oxford as techno-obssesed drop outs & could never have guessed what we’d achieve & experience in the coming years. It’s been a wild ride. We wish him all the best & thank him for everything, our friendship endures.
Onwards & upwards friends. We’ve been writing music as a three piece, which we cannot wait to share with you.
Big love to Edwin.
Yannis, Jimmy & Jack
Foals forever.
* * * *
I’d like to thank Yannis, Jimmy, Jack and Walter for inviting me into their nascent, spindly-legged band over fifteen years ago. They gave a directionless dropout a desperately needed sense of purpose and belonging. I hope it’s not too melodramatic to say that Foals saved my life – really. And I’ve been moved over the years by messages from fans saying that our music helped shine a path through their hard times too. That will stay with me my whole life.
So what’s my new purpose? Next month I’m beginning a postgraduate degree in economics at Cambridge, and I hope in the next couple of years to join others in technical efforts to mitigate the imminent climate catastrophe. The future’s not what it used to be, as a good friend once sang.
Music is a balm and a light, and so I couldn’t be prouder to have called myself a musician, and to have played a part in Foals’ journey from indie delinquents to bona fide rock stars. I’ve heard the new album – it is of course brilliant. Looking forward to next year, I’m thrilled to once again be able to watch the UK’s best live band from their best angle – that is, I mean, from the crowd. See you there.
– Edwin”
Words by Sam Wilkinson.
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Fruit and Grooves Collective 