Last month, Villagers released their fifth album Fever Dreams; a paean to human connection, the transporting and hypnotic record hit the Top 20 in the UK charts and garnered praise from across the board. Villagers’ Conor O’Brien saw Fever Dreams as a way of bringing the real and the surreal together.
Ahead of Villagers’ UK & Irish tour next month, O’ Brien is happy to share a very special new video for “Circles In The Firing Line”. The 6-and-a-half-minute track is the perfect showcase of the music found on Fever Dreams, songs that twist and turn with the magical ambivalence of dreams. The accompanying video for “Circles In The Firing Line” is an animated odyssey that nods to surrealistic collage and retro computer games before dissolving into a more liminal, abstract space. It is at once playful whilst filled with sense of foreboding.
On “Circles In The Firing Line” Conor says: “I like Keats’ concept of “negative capability” which he defines as “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason”. This is a song about when our negative capability fails us. I think the internet has a lot to answer for.”
The video director, Rosie Barrett, says: “It was such a joy to team up with Conor again for this brilliant song. From the very first listen I felt this piece really needed to live in another world, and that’s what we set out to do. Starting with a green screen process shot by the superb cinematographer, Albert Hooi while also working together with Conor on themes for this dystopian world of doom was a really interesting and fun process. “For the build, I had the pleasure of working collaboratively with the immensely talented motion designer Cian McKenna on the amazing visual world, accompanied by beautiful animation inside Conor’s brain by the brilliant ‘Eat the Danger’, while also having great fun bringing in my own design collage elements made by hand too.”
Alongside their upcoming UK & Irish live dates – which includes 4 dates at Dublin’s Vicar Street, Villagers have confirmed a European tour for January 2022.
2021 live dates
7th October – Vicar Street, Dublin
12th October – SWG3, Glasgow
13th October – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
15th October – Albert Hall, Manchester
16th October – SWX, Bristol
17th October – Junction, Cambridge
18th October – The Glee Club, Birmingham
20th October – Chalk, Brighton
21st October – Roundhouse, London
2nd November – Opera House, Cork
3rd November – Set Theatre, Kilkenny – Sold out
4th November – Dolans Warehouse, Limerick – Sold out
5th November – Black Box, Galway – Sold out
7th November – Empire Music Hall, Belfast – Sold out
11th December – Vicar Street, Dublin – Sold out
12th December – Vicar Street, Dublin – Sold out
13th December – Vicar Street, Dublin
2022 live dates
9th January – Burgerweehuis, Deventer, NL
10th January – Trix Zaal, Antwerp, BE
11th January – La Gaîte Lyrique, Paris, FR
12th January – Lantaren Venster, Rotterdam, NL
14th January – Paradiso Noord, Amsterdam, NL
15th January – Doornroosje, Nijmegen, NL
16th January – Muziekgieterij, Maastricht, NL
18th January – Fabrik, Hamburg, DE
19th January – Metropol, Berlin, DE
21st January – Technikum, Munich, DE
22nd January – Bogen F, Zurich, CH
23rd January – Kulturkirche, Cologne, DE
Fever Dreams is available to buy on Dom Mart exclusive coloured vinyl (with one-sided 7” and signed 4 postcard set), indies exclusive coloured vinyl, Dinked Editions exclusive coloured vinyl (with flexi disc), Irish exclusive coloured vinyl, vinyl, CD and digitally. Buy: Dom Mart | Digital The initial press of all vinyl formats features a die cut sleeve with 4 interchangeable album covers.
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