Villagers – Fever Dreams (Die-Cut Sleeve Vinyl LP)

Villagers returns on Domino Recording Co. with its fifth studio album Fever Dreams. 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, Connor 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). 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.

1. Something Bigger
2. The First Day
3. Song In Seven
4. So Simpatico
5. Momentarily
6. Circles In The Firing Line
7. Restless Endeavour
8. Full Faith In Providence
9. Fever Dreams
10. Deep In My Heart