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 a 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.”
Watch the video for “Circles In The Firing” HERE
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.”
Watch Villagers’ recent five-song session for KEXP here.
Watch Villagers’ CBS Saturday Session for “So Simpatico” here.
2021 live dates
October 7 – Vicar Street, Dublin
October 12 – SWG3, Glasgow
October 13 – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
October 15 – Albert Hall, Manchester
October 16 – SWX, Bristol
October 17 – Junction, Cambridge
October 18 – The Glee Club, Birmingham
October 20 – Chalk, Brighton
October 21 – Roundhouse, London
November 2 – Opera House, Cork
November 3 – Set Theatre, Kilkenny – SOLD OUT
November 4 – Dolans Warehouse, Limerick – SOLD OUT
November 5 – Black Box, Galway – SOLD OUT
November 7 – Empire Music Hall, Belfast – SOLD OUT
December 11 – Vicar Street, Dublin – SOLD OUT
December 12 – Vicar Street, Dublin – SOLD OUT
December 13 – Vicar Street, Dublin
2022 live dates
January 9 – Burgerweehuis, Deventer, NL
January 10 – Trix Zaal, Antwerp, BE
January 11 – La Gaîte Lyrique, Paris, FR
January 12 – Lantaren Venster, Rotterdam, NL
January 14 – Paradiso Noord, Amsterdam, NL
January 15 – Doornroosje, Nijmegen, NL
January 16 – Muziekgieterij, Maastricht, NL
January 18 – Fabrik, Hamburg, DE
January 19 – Metropol, Berlin, DE
January 21 – Technikum, Munich, DE
January 22 – Bogen F, Zurich, CH
