Conor O’Brien has announced Villagers' fifth studio album, Fever Dreams. The highly-anticipated followup to The Art of Pretending to Swim will be released on August 20, 2021 via Domino, and is accompanied by a video directed by Daniel Brereton.

“The whole process was pretty collaborative with Conor," said Brereton in a statement. "I think we both imagined a floatiness to the video, and obviously the title conjures up a lot of imagery and ideas, ‘The first day of the rest of your life’. What does that look like? How does that feel? We were very lucky to shoot on film and have great casting and styling. Shooting during a pandemic is not easy, so I feel fortunate that we got to make it happen.”

True to the song, the video is stunning and vivid.  “I had an urge to write something that was as generous to the listener as it was to myself," O'Brien explains. "Sometimes the most delirious states can produce the most ecstatic, euphoric and escapist dreams.”

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.

Irish Live Dates

Tues 2nd November – Opera House, Cork
Wed 3rd November – Set Theatre, Kilkenny
Thurs 4th November – Dolans Warehouse, Limerick
Fri 5th November – Black Box, Galway
Sun 7th November – Empire Music Hall, Belfast
Sat 11th December – Vicar Street, Dublin

Watch the video below.