Oozing with raw, euphoric energy, And So I Watch You From Afar have accomplished more than they could ever have expected in the band’s ten years. From playing local shows in Atlantic Bar on the North coast of Ireland to touring Japan, they’ve enjoyed unexpected success for a group that plays what they describe as “weird music”.
Full article via Punktastic.
Read moreArticle by Brice Ezell via Pop Matters
On its fifth studio LP, And So I Watch You From Afar re-centers its musical approach on instrumental gymnastics, with added emotional warmth to boot.
Read moreAnd So I Watch You From Afar are as exuberant as their name is ridiculous. Once upon a time, these frenzied lads’ best known song was a little ditty named “Set Guitars to Kill” which wasn’t just the first song from their first album, it also acted a mantra. But they got decidedly more—“happy” isn’t quite the word—euphoric. They indulged in “Adventure Time” fancies and smiley shout along choruses. It was math pop for lack of a better term. Sugar packed, major-key abusing, pure joyous energy delivered by smashing drums and hyperactive guitars. They were Slint obsessed with Cartoon Network rather than Nosferatu. It was best summed up by the first song on their last album, Heirs. “Run Home” was the sonic equivalent of a million pack of Crayola markers strapped to the sides of a rocket. But they’ve injected some darkness back in for their newest The Endless Shimmering, avoiding binging on shininess and producing one of their finest efforts.
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We catch up with And So I Watch You From Afar (or ASIWYFA) at a particularly fitting time. The instrumental heavyweights’ fifth album, ‘The Endless Shimmering’, is easily their most tempestuous release, packed with anthemic guitar hooks and unpredictable detours.
Full article via Stereoboard.
Read moreIn the lead-up to going in to record the nine songs that make up ‘The Endless Shimmering’, And So I Watch You from Afar practiced them extensively, the idea being that they’d be so well-drilled before they actually headed to the studio that it would be as if they’d already toured them. That’s something that shines through pretty clearly throughout what is far and away the tightest and most refined record to date from the Belfast outfit. As usual, they take a liberal approach to the volume dial across the board; the drums are thunderous, especially on opener ‘Three Triangles’, while the guitars flit frequently between shimmering (!) walls of feedback and the kind of agile licks that they’ve long plucked from their more melodic influences.
Full article Via DIY
Read moreIt takes just over a minute for And So I Watch You From Afar’s fifth album to go from intriguing to epic, as opening track Three Triangles demonstrates, but as they’ve proven over the years, that is the foursome’s default setting.
Since childhood friends Chris Wee and Rory Friers first began playing together as teenagers, they have always done things a little differently: made music that takes unexpected swerves into the unknown and packed surprises into their songs to jolt and disorient.
Full article via The Irish Times.
Read moreAnd So I Watch You From Afar begin their EU/UK tour today and their new album “The Endless Shimmering” is out everywhere on October 20th!
Tour dates below:
OCT 18 Haarlem, NL // Patronaat
OCT 19 Utrecht, NL //…
Countless bands will attest to And So I Watch You From Afar’s influence on their own music; in 2009, the predominantly instrumental Belfast-based outfit released a self-titled record that few heard but almost every single person who did immediately took it upon themselves to start a band. As a result, they have had a direct effect on making math rock and instrumental music blossom into the modest but fertile scenes that they are in the UK today. Thanks to a myriad of local DIY independent movements and festivals such as ArcTanGent and Strangeforms, a style of music that could easily have just been seen as a small blip in the annals of music history has bloomed into something that can be genuinely regarded as a world-wide recognised movement.
Full article and album stream via The Independent.
Read moreWith the four studio albums they have to their name so far, Belfast’s own And So I Watch You From Afar have perfected an instrumental playbook whose mantra requires a lot out of these musicians. Just about every one of And So I Watch You From Afar‘s songs involves the band tying itself into a series of seemingly irresolvable knots, with tricky time signatures and zip-fast guitar leads coalescing into mind-rattling figures. Yet by the end of each song, the quartet finds its way out. That is a rare act that makes a conservatory-worthy music clinic sound like an absolute blast; for a band of this caliber, it’s easy to indulge in time signatures as an end in of themselves, but these guys have figured out how to make instrumental prowess and infectious songwriting go hand in hand.
Full article via PopMatters
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And So I Watch You From Afar have released a new song entitled “Dying Giants” from their upcoming ‘The Endless Shimmering.’
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