Conor O’Brien is an Irish poet in the grand tradition. He has been a cover star in his native Dublin for the last year, where big-eyed Irish poets with scuffed jean cuffs and a soul-acute acoustic sound do well. Tonight, however is Jools Holland, in big grim London town, tonight is the biggest night in Conor’s life, tonight Conor is nervous. He is accordingly head shy then; and the old truth that a chat with a poet will reveal little of his muse holds true.

Lines in the Villager’s The Meaning of the Ritual contain a knowledge and articulation of the inherent faults of love that someone as outwardly cherubic as O’Brien shouldn’t appear to have. He’s a grand old 27 though, and hates being asked for pompous themes to his work: “I liked Dubliners by James Joyce, but I was never really into all that. I’m gonna have to get used to talking about all this the whole time…Obviously the way a lot of songs happen is because you’re not talking about it so much, you just puke up your angst and offer it up on a plate.”

Conor is set to play alongside Marina & the Diamonds and Paul Weller on Jools Holland, and has also supported Neil Young – we hear he would “walk around backstage trailing a cloud of yellow smoke”. and Tracy Chapman – “I sat down in my bedroom and had to book flights for an entire European tour in one afternoon”, as well as playing guitar with platinum Irish singer Cathy Davey.

The Villagers’ brand of folk acoustic is offset with a bigger band look [there is a full band of six] with Conor as the creative lynchpin. He’s drawn comparisons with Elliot Smith, yet some tracks like Pieces have the flayed emotion of Radiohead while others like Down, Under the Sea have a driving percussion to add some ham to the haunches. O’Brien’s lyrics undoubtedly penetrate, with couplets paired as slickly as stacked cutlery about love’s failure, which will perversely make a legion of teenage girls fall in love.

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