Conor O’Brien has announced the fourth Villagers album is called The Art Of Pretending To Swim and will be released by Domino on Friday 21st September.
It’ll be the followup to 2015’s Darling Arithmetic and return to the more fully-arranged band style on previous records. It was all written, recorded, mixed, produced and mainly, performed by O’Brien in his Dublin studio.
‘A Trick of the Light’ is the first song from it, the first song from O’Brien since his collaboration with Nico Muhly.
The surreal video was directed by Bob Gallagher, who featured in quite a few places in this top 50 Irish music videos of all-time list.
Conor says of working with Bob:
“Myself and Bob got together and discussed the song thematically and came to the conclusion that there was no other option but to make a short film in which we follow a disheveled shamanistic protagonist who mysteriously triggers an altered state of consciousness in everyone he meets, or at least believes that he does. We also wanted lots of dancing and to inspire a general feeling of “what the hell did I just watch?” in the viewer.”
Villagers – The Art Of Pretending To Swim Tracklisting
1. Again
2. A Trick Of The Light
3. Sweet Saviour
4. Long Time Waiting
5. Fool
6. Love Came With All That It Brings
7. Real Go-Getter
8. Hold Me Down
9. Ada
The Art Of Pretending To Swim is available to pre-order on Domino Mart-exclusive deluxe LP (includes 10” of a 12-minute version of ‘Ada’ and B-side ‘This Is The Art Of Pretending To Swim’ plus signed lyric booklet), Deluxe LP (includes ‘Ada’/’ This Is The Art Of Pretending To Swim’ 10”), Standard LP, CD and Digitally.
