Villagers - Music and fragility between extremes

When I reach Conor O’Brien on Zoom, the singer-songwriter is getting ready for the first shows in support of his new record, “That Golden Time”. A performance on the Late Show for Irish national television, a mini in-store tour, and then off on dates across Europe. “Villagers are really busy right now,” he tells me, “but I’ll try to write new songs whenever I get some free time.” The Dubliner is already looking ahead to the next project, and as he confesses to me, ever since he stopped drinking he feels constantly full of energy, a kind of Superman. Energised, but still critical of the contemporary world: the excessive digitisation of human relationships and the polarisation of opinions seem in fact to be two themes he's been mulling over for a while now. A possible antidote for the mind? Reading books written before the advent of the Internet.

What's your idea of a “golden age”, “that golden time”?

Dreaming of another time and another place is something nostalgic. I was writing about the tension between that dream and the digital age we live in. In any case, it's a yearning for human interaction from before the arrival of the Internet, which is a bit ironic considering what we're doing right now!

What pushed you to work more on your own on “That Golden Time”? If I understood correctly, for the previous album many of the ideas came from playing with other people in the studio.

It's not something I planned. Even after I'd sent the recordings off to the engineer for mastering, the files were still called “demos”. I really did think they were still demos, but at the same time I kept inviting musicians round to my apartment and adding details. It was a pretty compulsive process. Also, these are very different songs from the last album. They're much more focused on storytelling, whereas with “Fever Dreams” I wanted to create grooves and make a kind of library music. Since I was more interested in the narrative side of things this time, I think it naturally turned into a sort of solo project.

It also seems to me that in some tracks the electronic parts are a bit more prominent than in the past. Is that connected to the fact that you worked a lot on your own?

Yes, maybe. Although there was already a lot of electronics on my second album as Villagers. Then I moved away from that for a while. If I can't see the core of a song with just me and an acoustic guitar, I think the identity of this project gets a bit lost, and it could end up becoming something I'd have to give another name to. Even when I use a lot of electronics, I try to keep my voice and the acoustic guitar central.

The ending of “Behind That Curtain” really surprised me! It reminded me a bit of “Circles In The Firing Line” from “Fever Dreams”. There you had a long guitar solo and a pop-punk turn, whereas here there's a jazzy ambient-techno coda. Do these unexpected turns within the songs carry a specific meaning or purpose?

At first, the final section of “Behind That Curtain” was completely different and much slower. You could even hear a recording of my father talking about his childhood. It was intense, but I realised it was more for me than for the audience. I think this danceable jazz section fits the record better. Also, that sonic madness represents the moment you discover what's behind the curtain and how the power dynamics at play in the world actually work.

It seems to me that, throughout the album, you're exploring and questioning the dichotomy between appearance and reality in philosophical terms.

On the album cover there's an image of an old Irish 20-pence coin, and on the back is what's believed to be the oldest known coin, minted in Lydia in the 6th century BC. Monetary value systems are culturally determined and the appearance of money changes, but behind it all there's always a power relationship. In the digital and social-media age, I think we often lose sight of the historical context of ideas and the way they can also be manipulated.

Why is the horse on the 20-pence coin upside down?

I thought it might be funny. Also, right now everything in the world feels a bit upside down.

It's really interesting how two very different souls coexist on this record, sometimes even within the same song. On one hand, there are stripped-back acoustic songs like “I Want What I Don’t Need” or the closing track, and on the other there are very ambitious arrangements.

I wanted to explore both extremes in the arrangements: on one hand as intimate as possible, on the other as rich and epic as possible. The lyrics also explore the space between extremes in terms of ideologies and ideas. I think nowadays online, extremism gets rewarded in a way, and the most extreme opinions get more and more likes. I wanted that to be reflected aesthetically in the musical choices on the album. Music and art offer a great space to explore that grey area between the extremes we live in: no matter what we think, we live in this strange world, full of nuance and, above all, complicated.

Do you think that music, through this process of exploration and inquiry, can allow for a dialogue between extremes?

Yes, at least for me it does. When I write, I discover things about my opinions and my feelings. In a way it contextualizes my reactions to the world and lets me see things from a broader perspective. Music has the potential to change people. It's definitely changed me: a lot of music has shaped me over the years. But beyond that, I don't know how much power it has in the world. It's an interesting question.

You said this is your most vulnerable album, but I think it's also your most delicate.

Yes, those two things are probably connected. My 2015 album, "Darling Arithmetic", is also very delicate and quiet. I think "That Golden Time" is perhaps even more fragile; at times it feels like it might shatter.

Why did you choose "Truly Alone" as the opening track?

It felt like it set the tone for the album a bit, which is about trying not to cling too tightly to a feeling, to an idea of nationality, to an identity. There's also a Nietzsche quote on the cover about that very idea.

Going back to the album cover: what does the moth symbolize?

It's a metaphor for several things. First of all, metamorphosis. But moths are nocturnal creatures that are easily drawn to flames, and flying toward them kills them. I think it's a fitting metaphor for our everyday life full of phones, flashing lights and screens. Maybe sometimes we lose our way along the road, letting all of that take over our lives and affect our ability to interact with the world in a human, nuanced and complicated way.

A golden moth is also the star of the video for "That Golden Time".

I'd sent director Rok Predin a video I'd made at home that had a moth in a brief scene, and he turned it into the main element. I really liked that, especially since he hadn't even seen the album cover. It was a lovely coincidence, and the whole theme started coming together very naturally from there.

You directed the video for the second single, "You Lucky One", yourself. The disturbing imagery contrasts with the gentleness of the song. Why did you decide to go in this direction?

The song is about the masks we all wear. The protagonist loses his sense of ethics at a certain point. I had the German legend of Faust and his pact with the devil in mind, and I thought I could make Satan appear on my face. With that dripping mask, I wanted to suggest how everyone has within them the potential to become the worst person in the world.

You invited Dónal Lunny of Planxty to play on some tracks. What's your relationship with Irish folk music?

When I was at university I started listening to the music of his early bands, but I didn't grow up listening to Irish music. When I was a kid, my house was full of Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and all that kind of mid-twentieth-century American jazz. But it's nice to have someone like Dónal as a friend and to have an element of that music in my songs, without ever claiming to be making Irish traditional music.

I read that you love the music of Ennio Morricone. Any tracks in particular?

So much! When I was a kid I really loved “Cinema Paradiso”, and then of course all the westerns. Right now I'm listening a lot to the beautiful soundtrack of a rather bad '71 film, “Maddalena”. Before he died, I saw him conduct in Dublin: it was a stunning concert.

(May 12, 2024)

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