Darling Arithmetic
Darling Arithmetic is the third album from Villagers, released on 13th April 2015. The follow-up to Conor O’Brien’s debut, Becoming a Jackal, and its successor, Awayland - both hugely acclaimed and Mercury-nominated - is a breathtakingly beautiful, intimate album entirely about love and relationships. Darling Arithmetic was written, recorded, produced and mixed by O’Brien at home - the loft of a converted farmhouse that he shares in the coastal town of Malahide to the north of Dublin - revealing a single-minded artist at the peak of his already considerable songwriting powers. It encompasses the various shades of feeling – desire, obsession, lust, loneliness and confusion, and deeper into philosophical and existential territory, across a cast of lovers, friends, family and even strangers. Backing up his supple and emoting vocal and guitar is the subtlest palate of instrumentation – piano, Mellotron (which accounts for the album’s occasional horn and cello tones) and brushes. O’Brien plays every instrument on these exquisite, melodic songs in a sparse, spacious, acoustic-leaning fashion. On Darling Arithmetic, O’Brien doesn’t only pare back his use of language but looks deep into his own heart and motives. The opening track and first single, ‘Courage’, concerns the most important kind of love – for yourself: “It took a little time to get where I wanted / It took a little time to get free / It took a little time to be honest / It took a little time to be me.”
Following two grandly orchestral and electronic-infused folk albums, both Mercury Prize nominees, Villagers' frontman Conor O’Brien offers a radically subdued collection that finds the shy Dubliner opening up in a more direct way about his sexuality.
Conor O'Brien strips away all the obscurity to reveal a simple, clear and ethereal voice on his third release.
By the third time through, the nine songs on Villagers’ new album sound like you’ve known them all your life.
Coming off Villagers' highly touted, Mercury Prize-nominated debut, 2010's Becoming a Jackal, singer/songwriter Conor J. O'Brien updated his group's atmospheric baroque pop sound with the addition of various synthesizers and drum machines, as well as creative collaboration with a working group of bandmates.
Previous Villagers records combined Conor O'Brien's polished songwriting with considerable bombast, but Darling Arithmetic is a quieter affair.
Similar to how W. B. Yeats dreamt away humdrum city life on the Isle of Innisfree, Villagers' Conor O'Brien stole away to the privacy of his...
While much of modern pop surrounds itself in bravado, Villagers are a curious anomaly. The Irish quintet are as honest as they come.
Conor O’Brien’s songs about love and anxiety are too flimsy to make a real impression
Darling Arithmetic is sparse and old-fashioned – proof that sometimes less really is more