Villagers joined us this morning for the presentation of an IMRO Award in recognition of his album Fever Dreams.
The IMRO Number 1 Award was introduced to acknowledge IMRO members who reach number 1 in the album charts here in Ireland.
The depth of emotion communicated in the songs of Conor O’Brien is reflected in his two Ivor Novello awards, for Best Song – “Becoming A Jackal”, and Best Album – Darling Arithmetic, which formalised his reputation as one of the leading songwriters of his generation. Of even greater significance is the relationship Villagers have built with their audience, one coloured by a great sense of communal catharsis and the capacity for articulating the affairs of the heart that are too often left unspoken.
Fever Dreams is Villagers’ 5th studio album. 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. Over the course of 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).
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.”
Villagers’ album Fever Dreams is out now on Domino Records.
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