As they release their seventh album, And So I Watch You From Afar confirm their status as the big beasts of the post-rock world. The making of Megafauna is a tale of rattling the rafters of an old linen factory, celebrating the people and places that shaped the band, and seeing what they can get away with next, as bassist Ewan Friers reveals.
“I feel like the band seem pretty comfortable in our own skin at the minute,” says Ewen Friers, bassist of Belfast’s prog-math-post-rockers And So I Watch You From Afar. From their origins in the small town of Portrush, Northern Ireland, the quartet have arrived at a point in their career where they played two headline sets at last August’s ArcTanGent festival. Seemingly flush with confidence, they devoted one set to performing their new album, Megafauna, in its entirety.
The shows followed the success of their first US tour in seven years, yet it appears that their exponentially growing status isn’t something they’ve actively planned or pursued.
“We’re in no massive rush to chase this or chase that,” says Friers. “What we’re really chasing is making albums that we can be really proud of, and the rest will come or not come. You need to really believe in what you’re doing – that’s the main goal.”
‘Megafauna’ means very large animals; but the album itself is an ode to the group’s two homes, Portrush and their beloved Belfast, and all the people in the ecosystem that surround and support them. The music came together during lockdown, when the band – Ewen, his brother Rory and Niall Kennedy on guitars, and drummer Chris Wee – were sequestered in their rehearsal space in a converted 18th-century linen factory.
Ewen is the newest member of the line-up, officially joining four years ago, but as Rory’s brother, he’s been involved in one capacity or another since the start. “I’ve been touring with the band from the get-go. I’ve been in the studio on all the previous records,” he says. “It gives me a unique insight.”
On previous albums, ASIWYFA have often written in the studio, but that wasn’t the approach for Megafauna. “Because it was all happening during Covid, our work environment was just the four of us completely locked down in that rehearsal space in Belfast for all those months,” says Friers.
“The four walls of our rehearsal space became the epicentre of this record; it became our little universe. Other records were a bit more conceptual, taking bigger themes, broader themes; this one was more a product of the times – it was shrunken, more focused on our friendships within the band, within our scene, within Belfast, within the north coast where we’re originally from. It’s more of a zoomed-in record in that sense.”
It’s a great showcase for the quartet’s range, from the punchy power of North Coast Megafauna and the headlong momentum of Do Mór, through to the grooves of Mother Belfast Part 2 and the reflective Years Ago. “There are moments of tranquil or dreamy sounds – it’s still And So I Watch You From Afar, after all.”
“There are going to be these experimental sounds and soundscape moments, but then when you pivot to something like Do Mór, it’s almost punk rock. I remember those sessions during lockdown: you just wanted to plug straight into the amp, crank it, and rock out with your pals.”
The title Button Days is a tribute to those moments of cutting loose and rocking out. The history of their space as a linen factory lives on in the buttons left behind in the cracks in the walls and ceilings. During rehearsals, the band discovered that whenever they really dug into their heavy side, buttons fell upon them from above.
Bands like to explore all the fun things you can do in the studio to cover up the song in its pure form
“Eventually I started putting them in an empty beer bottle,” says Friers. “Now we have this bottle full of old buttons that symbolise a day in the rehearsal and writing process. I think it’s a beautiful visual record of that time. It shows how desperate we were for entertainment during lockdown that I was preoccupied with collecting buttons. When we were naming songs, one of Rory’s suggestions was that we should pay homage to the ‘button days.’”
The recording sessions took place in Attica Audio, Donegal, working with studio owner and producer/engineer Tommy McLaughlin. “It’s an amazing residential studio out in the wilds; a really beautiful place,” says Friers.
The remoteness was integral to its appeal, allowing the band to maintain the sense of being immersed in the music, free from distractions, that they’d experienced in rehearsals. “That was very attractive: ‘Let’s get out of Belfast now that we’ve composed the record and we’ll lock down in this beautiful, rural setting.’”
The band trusted McLaughlin to understand the vibe they were after and to bring out the best. Although the album features appearances from The Arco String Quartet and pianist Michael Kenney, ASIWYFA wanted to maintain a live approach. “Bands get in studios, and they like to explore all the fun things you can do in the studio to cover up the song in its pure form,” says Friers.
I kept telling myself that if there’s a festival that’s going to be friendly to us, it’s ArcTanGent
“Tommy was excellent in being able to take our vision – what we talked about in the rehearsal room and wanted to print onto an album – and pull that out of us. It was very much performance based. His space is much more luxurious than our little beat-up rehearsal room, but it felt like home for sure.”
The other place that feels like home is ArcTanGent, which made it the perfect location to debut Megafauna. Friers says he felt “enormous nerves” at the prospect of playing an entire set of unfamiliar material to a festival crowd. “But I kept on telling myself that if there’s a festival that’s going to be friendly to us, it’s ArcTanGent. We could be called the house band for that festival.
“I think And So I Watch You From Afar have played it more times than anyone. It’s the epicentre of the scene we inhabit; so there was pressure, but honestly it felt like we were going to play the album through for our friends and family at the rehearsal room.”
Playing Megafauna might have been a gamble, but the cards fell in the band’s favour. “There still were proper moshpits, and even during the really quiet moments the audience was so respectful,. As I was leaving the stage, I put my arm around Niall and said, ‘I think we got away with it.’ That’s the best way I can describe it: we got away with it.”
ASIWYFA have been getting away with it for almost 20 years, taking their ambitious, dense instrumental rock far beyond their birthplace in Northern Ireland. If there’s a glass ceiling for bands of this progressive stripe, it seems they haven’t hit it yet – although when they started, just getting out of Portrush was the height of their ambitions.
“Imagine getting a gig in Belfast; that was the glass ceiling of where we could go,” says Friers. “Then, bit by bit, there have been more glass ceilings. I think we’ve been surprised about where the band can go and what it can do.
“I don’t think we have an unhealthy chasing of that, like, ‘How do we break through?’ I don’t think that’s what gets us out of bed in the morning, but there’s an optimistic thing in me, like, ‘Why not?’ I think it’s important to be ambitious. I’m coming back to what I said to Niall: ‘Let’s see what we can get away with.’”
