Synopsis

Foals perform amid a loose, surreal outdoor gathering that feels part music video, part eccentric day trip. Friends drift through sunlit locations while balloons, dark liquid, unusual props and an octopus create a deliberately dreamlike atmosphere. The band members appear less like characters in a conventional narrative than participants in a playful, slightly chaotic communal ritual. The images move between performance and strange visual tableaux, matching the song's restless energy and its uneasy sense of distance, travel and wanting to get home.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was released ahead of the single, which NME premiered online on September 1, 2008. The single followed on October 6, 2008.

• "Olympic Airways" was the fourth and final single from Foals' debut album, "Antidotes," released in 2008.

• The video's imagery includes Foals' friends, balloons, crude oil and an octopus, giving the piece its memorable mixture of homemade surrealism and playful absurdity.

• The shoot was later described by the creative team as a fun day out with friends rather than a heavily controlled studio production.

• "Olympic Airways" has been connected by Yannis Philippakis with London Heathrow Airport. He also described the song as expressing isolation, a desire to be home and reluctance to go outside.

• The track appeared on the soundtrack to the 2008 soccer video game "FIFA 09," helping introduce Foals to a wider international audience.