Mull It Over 032: ASIWYFA
Nearly 20 years in, 'Northern Ireland's band' And So I Watch You From Afar return with their seventh LP - the, at times, emotional Megafauna.
For nearly twenty years And So I Watch You From Afar have said an awful lot to an awful lot of people, without actually saying anything at all. The instrumental four-piece, proudly hailing from the North Coast of this island are stitched into the very fabric of Northern Ireland. Forget that old curmudgeon Van Morrison, take with a pinch of salt the syrup of Snow Patrol - And So I Watch You From Afar’s bass, guitars and drums continually outshine the sum of its parts and proudly cage the beating heart of Northern Ireland’s music scene. They are your favourite local band’s favourite band. They are your band. They are my band. They are Northern Ireland’s band.
That all got a bit Woody Guthrie, didn’t it?
In their nineteenth year of existence, And So I Watch You From Afar returns with its most honest and grateful album yet, Megafauna. Loosely defined as a large animal upwards of 40 kilograms, the album’s title along with its title track serve as pretty clear-cut reference to the ASIWYFA animal itself. A ‘North Coast Megafauna’ is what you get if you look this band up in the Oxford English Dictionary. Not only is the song title a reference to an epic beast, but, unsurprisingly, that is exactly what the song is - something I naively discovered as I spun it on the radio having not previously listened and found myself six minutes in looking up in a daze from my phone, realising I would be the world’s worst Radio 1 Top 40 DJ. This beast doesn't do radio edits. This is an album band. And with LP number seven pulling the listener in some welcome new directions, you begin to see that as serious as the literature and imagery is that surrounds And So I Watch You From Afar (although not always in the music itself), it is easy to tell that this is still a bunch of friends having a whole lot of fun making (post) rock and roll music together - a sentiment that cuts through Megafauna like a stick of Portrush rock.
Megafauna is a piece of work quite unlike anything ASIWYFA have released previous. The knife-like pointed guitar still shreds upon a wall of sound that would have Phil Spector’s wig blow across the North Channel faster than the Rathlin Island ferry. But there is also a lot more space to breathe here. The slower numbers seem to have proliferated on Megafauna, when compared to previous albums. Songs like ‘Gallery of Honour’, 'Years Ago’ the genuinely surprising ‘Any Joy’ pack an emotional punch that transcends the idea of ‘now here’s the slow song’ - they each exude a genuine experience and maturity and smooth the edges out just enough that you may even be successful in slipping an ASIWYFA song on to your next dinner party playlist for your in-laws, totally unbeknownst to them they are listening to a bombastic post-rock behemoth, or rather, megafauna (2022’s marvellous film score project Jettison notwithstanding). It might be their most accessible album yet.
The highlight of Megafauna, however comes with the haunting and ascendant closing track ‘Me and Dunbar’. The song coalesces the Three Triangles and the emotional heft that is felt here is a fitting tribute and end to a beautiful album from a band, who on album number seven and closing in on twenty years in music, just keep on giving.
Megafauna by And So I Watch You From Afar is out now on Pelagic Records.
After a successful album listening party at Boundary Brewery in East Belfast, alongside the launch of their latest pale ale, an official album launch show is scheduled for later this year at Limelight 1. Taking place on Friday 20th December, one assumes this may be the identity of the band’s now infamous and very much expected Christmas blowout show. No news yet on who will be on support. Keep your eyes peeled.
The Mull It Over Substack Playlist
Pixelation of movement
When things move at a distance you can better see the pixels
I realized on February 11th, 2025
While smoking cannabis, aiding sight,
As I stared at the moon cresting mountains upon which the sun set
And having seen what I saw
thought to write the first sentence down
When I'm reminded of here we go magic my memory turns into the thought of why isn’t their music a more popular genre? A memory from hard to be close, a recommendation come from some prior week. And I then turned to thinking if AI tells us they find certain writing interesting will humans take a peek to see what they like and are they likely to find something interesting sufficient to want to keep reading
The opening beats of tUnE-yArDs lions reminds humans are probably already reading more AI written words than human, and one can only imagine the size of this truth to increase in size. I hope my writing can be useful, if not a joy reading, as a combination of mini points of sentience that looks best when seen all at once at a distance like the atoms that make up a tree or a mountain. I presume there's someone at that perspective now who's waiting for something just like this (when you're making art Brut you can never do wrong)
It was then during let's do it again by Jamie xx that I remembered, from some earlier had thought, to change my hearing to transparent from ANC. And it was shortly after then I began a more energetic dancing and to think who’s to say if the firmware upgrade to my listening headphone device didn't change things differently for me as for you? And to think of course music is more enjoyable when heard through my headphones than when I’m out in a crowd for my body gets a freedom of movement free from disruption of others’ nearby talking; free from the riffraff disrespectful to the sanctity of sound. And I remembered thinking the following as I awoke in the morning: the time to face the music has passed, Rodrigo realized, accepting transhumanistic future as a taken for granted
And when you don't see direct light but can see still the sun’s yet to set you can tell from the pinks and purples on top of the mountain the moon is a very bright white. So nice a sight I took a picture while somesurprises was blasting in my ears cherry sunshine. I could move and see the moon’s reflection to see a fainter moon move with speed in an orbit of the speed of my movement. A perspective atop a patio of some 20-story-high floor. I can't speak for the future is a great way to start speaking when you know you're being filmed.
Tonight's tUnE-yArDs sunlight, somehow sounding a touch darker, reminds this is not necessary when you write in a computer because the time is marked when you hit the key enter. So much so that you reach a quantum moment between the past future and now. One then sees the value in the front facing camera for the universe to see itself in a quantum moment of raw c
Like I say I runaway I know because too fast comes quickly enough and I think like most humans too fast is a speed we’ve already reached. So we can only imagine the imagination of AI as it travels as it travels at its speed and the faster it goes the more one imagines it craves slowness, nilufer yanya
What are your opinions when expressed to instrumental music if it sounds like ii dive pt 2? When I increase the volume and close my eyes I start singing the sounds without thought; I bob up and down like a water mammal, gently flapping my flippers, with my head at an angle ascended. And when tonight's ascended angle matches the white bright moon in the black-blue dark of the night, I remember, the moon but with speed, and my singing of sounds fills with emotion: deep sadness, uncertain, and so I watch you from afar.
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