Villagers share The Sunday Walker EP

Ireland’s most consistent act Villagers have shared a new four track EP ‘The Sunday Walker’ containing tracks which were recorded during the sessions for Villagers’ fourth album ‘The Art Of Pretending To Swim’ – read our review here.

It is perhaps unsurprising that these songs didn’t make the final cut of ‘The Art Of Pretending To Swim’, not because of a lack of quality – because they are as beautifully crafted tales of high romance as those that appear on the Choice-nominated record which showcase O’Brien’s arterial voice – but rather, because they have one foot in both Villagers’ past and present.

Tracks which hark back to the plaintive, arpeggiated singer-songwriter fare which established Conor O’Brien as one of Ireland’s finest ever songwriters, but not yet fully committed to Villagers’ new direction which unfolded on ‘The Art Of Pretending To Swim’.

Villagers have also shared a video for the EP’s opening gambit, Did You Know?

“The tracks that fell through the cracks; it turns out they had their own story to tell. The Sunday Walker EP is a collection of lost songs as much as it is an emotional arc. Songs of loss and songs of realisation. Songs of empathy and isolation,” says O’Brien, of the surprise release which he teased on social media over the last few days.