Show Review: And So I Watch You From Afar, TTNG, Mylets

TTNG

LA record label Sargent House put together a solid bill that flaunted some great rock at Kings Barcade on Tuesday, November 5.

Mylets, putting out his first full-length Sargent House album next year, plays mostly instrumental music. Written and performed by himself, Henry Kohen utilized numerous pedals and samplers to play his songs. At times, he’d yell over the aggressive loop-based songs. He had a knack for making loops on the fly, a difficult task not many can do, especially impulsively to a high tier quality. His guitar riffs were layered, also taking time with the synth bass and percussion pads to build a full sound.

TTNG (This Town Needs Guns) was first of the two headliners, both of whom played full sets. The guys chatted between songs, commenting on the tour, sharing some stories and trying to pump up the audience. Given it was a Tuesday night, there was a decent crowd, but it took a while for the majority to really wake up. As you would expect from the music, a large amount of the songs were constructed with taps, pull offs and harmonics – always fun to watch this guitar style being created feet from your face. Henry Tremain, lead vocalist, guitarist and bassist, had a creative setup. He played a good bit with two guitars stacked on each other, hanging from different lengths. The top, tuned “normally,” the bottom Squire tuned an octave lower to emulate a bass guitar sound.

The band invited Mylets on stage to play a song with them, and he looked stoked, getting into the half-screaming vocals with one arm cemented behind his back as he danced around a bit. At the end of their set, they did something else pretty special. Introducing “26 Is Dancier Than 4,” the first track off of their self-titled 2008 album, they got a great response, pegging it as a crowd favorite. Tremain asked who knew the song, who knew the words, and then after a wave of cheers, who wanted to come up and sing it with him. A younger guy named Casey jumped up on stage and melted right in. Harmonizing wonderfully with Tremain throughout the set, he had no shyness getting behind the mic. At the end of the song, he respectfully and nervously thanked each of the members, shaking their hand, and accidentally interrupting a guitar riff to do so – but it’s cool, he rocked.

And So I Watch You From Afar

And So I Watch You From Afar came on a little after 10:15. They opened with songs off their newest album, All Hail Bright Futures, including “Ambulance,” a track that builds up upon a single riff with powerful beats, breaks, and shouts. Inevitably, a small pit soon formed a few people back from the front. After a few songs, I looked at the friend I was standing next to who hadn’t seen them before. When I could see her face between hair-flying head banging, she was grinning ear to ear. That pretty much reflected my experience. ASIWYFA plays very tight with palpitating energy that mirrors their music in a physical and visual way.

With instrumental shows, there are different approaches the performer-audience connection can take. From an audience perspective, it often feels like you’re sitting in on a practice and watching through a glass window, or at a theatre watching a hi-brow performance. Then, you have ones like this that play to the audience and bounce energies back and forth, transforming it to an emotive rock show. They, too, invited Mylets on stage for a song. Their tour manager also joined for a song and the group just looked like they were having a blast, and the crowd was responsive. I was incredibly happy with the set list’s flow, and they hit all my favorites, including “7 Billion People All At Once,” “Set Guitars to Kill,” and an extended version of “The Voiceless” as their final song.

The bands share the same label and are working closely doing the whole tour together. There is an undeniable level of support and camaraderie between them that made the experience interconnected, rather than seeing three individual bands at face value. 

Show Preview: And So I Watch You From Afar, TTNG, Mylets

And So I Watched You From Afar will perform at
Kings Barcade on Nov. 5

Sargent House, a Los Angeles-based management company and record label, is hosting a tour coming to Kings on Tuesday night showcasing three of their artists. And So I Watch You From Afar (ASIWYFA) will co-headline this show with TTNG (formerly This Town Needs Guns), each playing full sets, with Mylets opening. The label is also known for artists such as Russian Circles, Tera Melos, Red Sparrowes, Boris and Bosnian Rainbows.

Mylets is Henry Kohen’s one-man project, self-described as loop rock. Aggressive vocals lay over mixtures of acoustic and electric drums and guitar. Chances are, if you’re a fan of either of the headliners, you’ll dig Mylets. He’s orchestrated a full rock band sound, and watching him create it live should be interesting. Mylets will record and release his Sargent House debut full length next year.
Math/prog-rock trio TTNG hails from the United Kingdom, which translates to they don’t come through the area very often. They released their sophomore album 13.0.0.0.0 in January of this year, and received solid reviews from music critics at Consequence of Sound and Sputnikmusic. It also marked the transition to officially being called by their acronym, TTNG. If you haven’t checked them out yet, the sound is reminiscent of Minus the Bear and label mates Maps & Atlases, with nontraditional time signatures and impressive rhythm sections.

Irish instrumental rockers ASIWYFA return to the Triangle for another sure to be high-energy show. They also released an album this spring, All Hail Bright Futures, which strays slightly from the sans-lyric form the band has historically done, and delved a bit deeper into experimenting with new sounds and ways to achieve those sounds. While a lot of the set is likely to be drawn from this, expect to hear some old favorites, too, that the band may expand on live. Riff-driven, loud and experimental (one of All Hail’s songs features a strong guitar riff sung rather than played), the band is a fine-tuned machine that puts on a seamless and powerful show.

Doors open at 7:00 pm and the show will begin at 8:00 pm. Tickets are $13 in advance, available online at kingsbarcade.com, and $15 day-of at the door.