With new album Fever Dreams due for release this August, Villagers will make a return to Kilkenny as part of their UK & Ireland tour.
Last seen around these parts with a live show at Ballykeeffe Amphitheatre in 2019, Conor O’Brien and co. make the trip to Set Theatre on Wednesday 3 November with Conchúr White in support.
Touting some killer artwork, Fever Dreams becomes the fifth studio album for Villagers, dropping on 20 August via Domino.
“So happy to announce the new Villagers album ‘Fever Dreams’ for release on 20th August and to share the beautiful video for “The First Day” directed by Daniel Brereton. This is ecstatic, euphoric and escapist music and I am excited for you to hear it. Available to pre-order now. I am equally excited to announce TOUR DATES for this Autumn! I really can’t wait to play this new music live for you all. Tickets on sale this Friday 23rd at 9 am x Conor” (via)
Villagers UK & Irish Tour 2021
12 October – Glasgow, SWG3
13 October – Nottingham, Rescue Rooms
15 October – Manchester, Albert Hall
16 October – Bristol, SWX
17 October – Cambridge, Junction
18 October – Birmingham, The Glee Club
20 October – Brighton, Chalk
21 October – London, Roundhouse
02 November – Cork, Opera House
03 November – Kilkenny, Set Theatre
04 November – Limerick, Dolans
05 November – Galway, Black Box
07 November – Belfast, Empire Music Hall
11 December – Dublin, Vicar Street
Watch: Villagers – The First Day
New track The First Day was inspired by a trip to the fabled Another Love Story festival in County Meath – beginning as a snatched electronic doodle, it morphed into a widescreen, lushly cinematic evocation of the joy in human connection.
O’Brien says on the gestation of Fever Dreams: “I had an urge to write something that was as generous to the listener as it was to myself. Sometimes the most delirious states can produce the most ecstatic, euphoric and escapist dreams.”
These are songs with the strange, melted shapes and the magical ambivalence of dreams. The intent of the songs is both mysterious and as clear as a bell. With Fever Dreams, there is a sense of a deepening mastery and an expanding reach by O’Brien. Inspiration for the album was found in many places and came in from all angles, from night swimming on a Dutch island to Flann O’Brien, Audre Lorde, David Lynch, L. S. Lowry via the library music of Piero Umiliani and Alessandro Alessandroni and jazz from Duke Ellington and Alice Coltrane.
Written over the course of two years, the main bodies of the songs were recorded in a series of full-band studio sessions in late 2019 and early 2020. During the long, slow pandemic days, O’Brien refined them in his tiny home studio in Dublin, and the album was then mixed by David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx, FKA Twigs).
Fever Dreams follows The Art Of Pretending To Swim, Darling Arithmetic, {Awayland} and Becoming A Jackal. Conor O’Brien also has a string of accolades under his belt including two Ivor Novello Awards, two Mercury Music Prize nominations and is a previous winner of Ireland’s Choice Music Prize. Additionally, Villagers’ music has featured in the BBC/Hulu series Normal People and their Spotify session of “Nothing Arrived” has hit over 165 million streams.
Tickets for Villagers, live at Set Theatre, go on sale this Friday 23 April at 9am.
