Villagers

Today, we go to Ireland to meet a band that's one of my favorite new bands. I'm listening to them right now, actually, and am blissfully enjoying myself. They are the Villagers, whose lead singer and main songwriter, Conor O'Brien, is an out gay man.

Conor O'Brien formed the Villagers after the break-up of his previous band The Immediate. They gave their first live performance as a support act with The Chapters in November 2008. At that point the band had previously only rehearsed together on two occasions. They had only seven songs, written by O'Brien and passed on to the rest of the band to learn.

The band's debut EP, titled Hollow Kind, was released in February 2009. The EP brought comparisons with Bright Eyes and Sparklehorse. Villagers then went on tour. They were a support act for Neil Young and toured across Europe with Tracy Chapman.

Down Under The Sea was the opening track of the EP:

On a Sunlit Stage, released in October 2009, was the debut single of the Villagers.

Here's a live version with just Conor O'Brien and his guitar:

In 2010, the Villagers were involved in efforts to raise funds in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. They embarked on a tour with the Tindersticks in March 2010 and released the single Becoming a Jackal, a heart-wrenching, melodic piece full of lyrical finesse on April 2010. Here it is:

A month later, they released their debut album, also called Becoming a Jackal. The album received very positive reviews, and holds a Metacritic score of 79%. It peaked at #1 in the Irish Independent Albums Chart. Here's opening track I Saw The Dead:

Here's Set The Tigers Free:

Ship Of Promises was chosen as a single, yet another outstanding track in an album full of outstanding tracks.

In September 2012 the band announced the release of The Waves, the first single from their follow-up album.

{Awayland}, as their second album was called, was released in January 2013. As Connor himself said in a later interview, "the album was about making an epic statement. It was very band orientated, and everyone was playing very loud." The album, like its predecessor, received very positive reviews, and holds a Metacritic score of 80%. It topped both the Irish Independent Albums Chart, as well as the regular Irish Albums Chart, and was certified gold.

Next single off this album was Nothing Arrived:

The title track, an instrumental, was yet another exceptional piece of music:

... And so was the closing track, depression-conquering Rhythm Composer:

Whilst on tour supporting {Awayland},the band debuted two new songs; Occupy Your Mind and Hot Scary Summer. They were Connor's first openly gay themed songs.

Villagers released Occupy Your Mind on 7 February 2014 to coincide with the opening of the Winter Olympics in Sochi. But far from being a celebration of the joys of slope style or the finer points of figure skating, the song is a timely attack on Russia’s anti-gay laws.

The song dropped with a simple message from the band saying: “In the advent of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, please find attached a song written for you, your mother, your father and your gay brothers and sisters in Russia.”

As Connor said in an interview for the Irish Times, “I had an idea for the chorus and as I was reading more about everything that was going on in Russia I was changing the lyrics to make it specifically about that. I emailed everybody in the label including the management, saying I really want to do this on the day of the Winter Olympics opening to make a little point. Everyone got behind it really excitedly."

“The initial impulse for the song was an article about a particular gay nightclub in Sochi and I was wondering what it would be like to be one of the clientele in there. The song is trying to capture all that, of being there, flirting and having a great time in this club, but also the foreboding that surrounds that place, which exists in such a bigoted and homophobic place.”

The track’s release also has a major, accidental resonance in Ireland, with marriage equality top of the news agenda. “I was following it all very closely, the song adds to that general wave; it’s perfect timing,” says O’Brien. “It’s not anything other than a song but perhaps I would say it’s more of a soundtrack to what’s going on." Here is the song:

Hot Scary Summer calls out homophobia. As Connor said in another interview:

“I guess when I started thinking about the negative connotations of the relationships in my life, part of that was experiences of homophobia. I’ve been threatened, I’ve been chased. Ever since I’ve been born I’ve felt the more subtle side of institutionalised homophobia. I’m in my 30’s now and it’s just time to talk about it. I was a bit too shy when I was in my 20’s to put it all out there. I wasn’t ‘in’ in my private life, but when it came to giving interviews or whatever I’d get panicky. I’ve had those experiences, so they obviously kick you back into your shell again, until the shell is broken, which is happening kind of now in Ireland to a certain degree. We are getting a bit more free thinking I think.” He’s been looking down at the table while he talks about this. But at the end of that last sentence he looks up, smiling, “well in some areas”.

Here's Hot Scary Summer, quite possibly my favorite Villagers song:

Connor also speaks of some conservative members of Parlaiment's attempt to introduce a "conscience clause" into equality law in Northern Ireland, following legal action taken against a Christian-owned bakery by a gay couple:

“It’s basically ‘No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish, No gays.”  It’s just another way to make people feel bad about themselves as biological entities. Regardless of what you say about protecting people’s faith, if someone’s faith is saying that somebody else is lesser than you are, I don’t call that faith, I call that bigotry. This so called conscience clause is just another way of making people’s mind’s smaller. It’s not helpful to anyone. I think they just need to chill out and go to a gay bar.”

Hot Scary Summer was included in their third album, Darling Arithmetic, out in April 2015. The reviews for the album were once again very positive, with a Metacritic score of 76%. The album was cited by some reviewers as a departure from the sound of the Villagers' previous albums, with Pitchfork Media remarking "Darling Arithmetic, by contrast, is a radically subdued affair—nine mostly acoustic-based tracks that O’Brien recorded at home alone, playing every instrument and mixing the record on his own." Music critic with the New York Times, Nate Chinen also remarked on the change in sound stating "For the third Villagers album, “Darling Arithmetic,” Mr. O’Brien has scaled back radically, turning out something that resembles an old-fashioned folk-rock confessional." Tony Clayton-Lea of the Irish Times remarked that the album "proves that O’Brien – stripped back and wilfully solo – is just as potent and pure."

The album reached #1 in the Irish album charts in its first week of release and #27 in the UK. Off this album, here's achingly beautiful song The Soul Serene:

Here's another awesome song, opening track Courage:

Here's the album's title track, live:

Here's Little Bigot. It speaks of the end of bigotry. Amen.

The band's fourth album - a live album mostly consisting of live versions of previously released songs - was released on January 2016 and called Where Have You Been All My Life?. We've already heard most of the songs contained in the album in their studio versions, so let's hear the band's cover of the Jimmy Webb absolute classic Wichita Lineman:

The Irish Times placed them at number six in a list of "The 50 Best Irish Acts Right Now" published in April 2009, commenting: "from what we’ve heard and seen live so far, Villagers generate the type of music (sparse, eerie, casually dishevelled, tangibly cool) that will spread beyond the confines of niche appreciation into a great blue yonder".

Becoming a Jackal was nominated for the Mercury Prize on 20 July 2010, with the judges describing it as "a record of great charm and mystery". According to The Guardian, "an eerie stillness" occurred when the song Becoming a Jackal was performed at the event announcing the nominations.

In May 2011, Villagers frontman Conor J O’Brien won the 2011 Ivor Novello prize for Best Song Musically and Lyrically – the most prestigious of the Ivors – also for Becoming A Jackal.

We close with the live version of Hot Scary Summer, included in their last album: