Villagers Release New EP, The Sunday Walker

Irish indie-folk outfit Villagers have released a four-song EP, The Sunday Walker, featuring songs recorded during the sessions from their 2018 album, The Art of Pretending to Swim.

The tracks composing The Sunday Walker follow the tone set by their preceding record—tranquil, melancholic, smooth—but show frontman Conor O’Brien stripping down their sound for a minimalistic listen.

The opener “Didn’t You Know” draws the listener in with carefully orchestrated intimacy, bringing attention to O’Brien’s half-whispered vocals. Over a bed of fingerpicked guitar and a flowing string arrangement, he grapples with finding his way through romance, singing, “You can feel the love, just trying to get in / But you won’t know how to take it.”

Though the songs making up the EP didn’t make the cut for the full-length record, O’Brien believes they still hold an important, emotional place in their catalog:

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 realization. Songs of empathy and isolation.

The Sunday Walker is available for preorder on vinyl on Domino’s website here. You can listen to “Did You Know?” off the EP and a cut from Villagers’ Daytrotter session below, stream the full EP here and find the band’s tour dates further down.