H
The Art Of Pretending To Swim
9/10
Standout track: A Trick of the Light
It’s perhaps a little too easy to take Villagers front man Conor O’Brien for granted. When his big reveal Becoming a Jackal (2010) dropped upon our heads, you could be excused for expecting this to be the mark all future offerings be measured against. To that end, you could forgive the Malahide man a misstep or two. On the evidence of The Art of Pretending to Swim
(released today on Domino Records), you will be kept waiting for his off day. Far from pretending to do anything, O’Brien once again confirms himself to be the real deal.
The rhythm of the record is established from the starters gun:
I found again/a space in my heart again/for God again/in the form of art again.
The opening lyrics to the train-like Again confirm the beautiful introspection of 2015s Darling Arithmetic endures as a theme, but the sparsity of that record gives way to all the bells, whistles
and seagulls O’Brien has in his extensive locker. The tempo ebbs and flows – A Trick Of The Light sounds like a Flight of the Conchords track fused with the concept of an Enda Walsh play.
The album has a touch of everything; from the curious (Fool), to the ominous (Love Came With All That It Brings) to the downright trippy (the sumptuous closer Ada).
There is a timelessness to Pretending to Swim that leaves you with the sense that O’Brien and Villagers somehow been here before – at least a lot longer than the eight years and four albums
suggest. In arsehole wine parlance; there are hints of Sufjan Steven, meshed with an aftertaste of Sonic Youth.
Realising that once more, O’Brien wrote, produced, mixed and primarily performed the entire
album himself, you can’t help wonder how easy all of this comes to him, and whether his genius
somehow diminishes the material. Every note of the album screams control. The craftsmanship, lyrics, and production – it almost feels as if he is Will Hunting, burning the unsolvable theorems he has nonchalantly cracked before or eyes in the wastepaper basket, shouting “you know how easy this is for me?”
It’s a moot complaint – arguing that an artist is just too good at what he does. The Art of Pretending to Swim is a treasure. O’Brien has crafted his most accomplished album to date. Far from stressing about the ocean, it’s the stars who need to worry.
Colin Sheridan 