Stalwart Irish post-rock outfit And So I Watch You From Afar have released “North Coast Megafauna,” the latest single from their forthcoming seventh album Megafauna, which releases August 9 via Berlin’s Pelagic Recordsand Velocity Records in the U.S.
The clip echoes the band’s tribute to their homeland throughout the album. Their beloved places of Belfast, the Irish coast, and the surrounding forests are brought to life here by the intense, almost possessed choreography of dancer Sarah Flavelle.
The band also released a visualizer for the previously released track “Do Mór.” Watch here.
A tribute to the two places the collective call home, their beloved Portrush on the Irish North Coast and the beating heart that is Belfast, Megafauna is headstrong exploration and heartfelt appreciation with all the intuition, intimacy and humor of four firm friends approaching their 20th year as a band and a nod to the Irish roots that simultaneously ground and propel them forward.
Like so many other bands and creatives throughout the pandemic, ASIWYFA found themselves suddenly stationary, with any plans outside of their immediate vicinity put on indefinite hold. However, where this might have seen other acts falter, ASIWYFA took comfort in their communal bond and, as soon as they were able, began writing a record that quickly became a love letter to the communities they call home.
The intent behind Megafauna is clear from the outset. Two guitars, bass, and drums all recorded in a week erupt into effervescent life in an endorphin rush of collaboration and togetherness after the physical and psychological wilderness of isolation.
The similarly named opening track “North Coast Megafauna” serves as an appropriate anthem for the record and indeed for a band reinvigorated too. Proudly wearing their noisy math-rock, free jazz and experimental indie melting pot on their sleeves, ‘North Coast Megafauna’ is an eclectic, care-free confrontation of ASIWYFA’s joyously jarring collection of musical influences and cultural inspirations.
Megafauna is the band’s first new music since 2022’s critically-acclaimed Jettison, an ambitious multi-media ensemble piece packed full of experimentation and collaboration. Jokingly referring to Jettison as their mature record’, the band framed the writing of Megafauna around the their long-running mantra of “DO THE SCARY THING,” which sees ASIWYFA constantly hurtling towards newness, towards progress, evolution and the unknown. Whilst the new record is ASIWYFA taking on a more familiar, traditional form; in this post-Jettison, post-pandemic world, Megafauna is a deafening and defiant statement of intent from the band’s propulsive core — a clarion call for the communities that shape them, a resplendent celebration of togetherness over separation.-
And So I Watch You From Afar’s Rory Friers says the title track is “one of our favorite tracks on the record. A love letter to the North Coast, our friends there, the energy, the cold days skateboarding, the long summers in the sea, our beloved music venue, the closeness of it all. It has the heart of the land there with the weight of the North Atlantic.”
THOUGHTS WORDS ACTION 