After over 15 years with Foals, keyboardist Edwin Congreave has announced that he’s moving on to, er, more educated pastures. The founding member says he’s departing the Oxford indie rock band to pursue a postgraduate degree in economics at Cambridge University.
“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,” wrote the remaining band members in a statement on social media. “It was a helluva way to go out.” Foals’ lineup now consists of Yannis Philippakis, Jack Bevan, and Jimmy Smith as a trio, following bassist Walter Gervers’ departure in 2018.
Congreave’s former bandmates continued: “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.”
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Congreave detailed his big plans for his higher education, writing his own statement in the same post: “I hope in the next couple of years to join others in technical efforts to mitigate the imminent climate catastrophe. 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.” Read the full statements below.
Foals shared their latest albums, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 and Part 2, in 2019. As today’s statements imply, a new album is currently in the works.
