Big Beasts
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.
Words: David West
And So I Watch You From Afar have their fingers on the buttons…
Images:
Tom Mcgeehan
I feel like the band seem pretty comfortable in our own skin at the minute,” says Ewen Friers, bassist of Belfast’s prog-mathpost-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, so that’s the main goal.” ‘Megafauna’ means very large animals, but the album itself is an ode to the group’s two homes, Portrush on the Irish north coast, 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 birth of ASIWYFA.