It took a little time to get where I wanted,” sings Conor O’Brien on Courage, the opening track to his latest album.

“It took a little time to get free. It took a little time to be honest. It took a little time to be me.”

For the bearded Irishman, who trades under the name Villagers, it’s a disarming sentiment, and one which sums up the charm of this artist who, for his third album, Darling Arithmetic, has stripped back his music to the bare essentials – and is baring his soul.

It’s a departure from the previous acclaimed, and Mercury-nominated, multi-faceted outings 2010’s Becoming A Jackal and 2013’s [Awayland].

It is sparse, spacious and honest, just him and his music – all of which, every instrument, no less, is played by him. He even mixed the thing at home.

“On [Awayland] in particular, I was experimenting with lots of stuff, which I really enjoyed,” he says. “But when I started this album, I wanted to get on one line, with the same feeling from start to finish, that I was emotionally satisfied with.

“Right before I started writing the songs, I watched Fellini’s film Bicycle Thieves, which has this one clear vision, so beautifully executed and so simple.

“I even thought of giving each song its own love adjective, like ‘Unrequited’ or ‘Unconditional’. I’d been a bit disappointed in myself for hiding behind metaphors.”

He recorded Darling Arithmetic in a converted farmhouse in Malahide, just up the coast from Dublin. His voice, and guitar, is backed by subtle flourishes of piano, Mellotron and brushes.

“I wanted to play delicately and respond to the emotion of each song,” he explains.

It reveals much about him. It is entirely about love and relationships – touching on desire, obsession, lust, loneliness and confusion, and involving lovers, friends, family and even strangers.

The soulful Hot Scary Summer examines the break-up of a love affair blighted by “all the pretty young homophobes looking out for a fight”.

No One To Blame deals with unrequited love, addressing “those objects of affection that you’ll never have, and letting it affect your self-esteem.”

He adds: “I wanted a romantic tinge too, to almost give credence to those negative feelings.

“So for anyone feeling this right now, I have a song for you, a song that I wish I’d had when I was in that place.”

In Little Bigot, he declares love for the very person that won’t accept him, suggesting that they “throw that hatred on the fire.” The same feeling - that love is the most enduring of human traits – also inspires the album’s finale So Naïve, on which he realises that ”we actually don’t know anything,”

Adding: “I'm a little sad ‘most every day 'til you call my name or make me stay.

“That's when I believe that I'm part of something bigger. I'm so naive but I guess I've got it figured out.”

The title track deals with finished relationships. “Arithmetic is the basis of all mathematics, and ‘darling’ is a term of endearment, so it comes from that feeling of your loved ones being the basis of everything,” he explains.

In The Soul Serene, however, he returns to the theme of self-acceptance and respect. “I wanted to write a meditation song,” he says. “I had an idea of blankness as I was writing it.”

It’s a luxury he can afford himself. By going back to principals of songwriting, he has reinvented himself.

“I don’t want Villagers to be the finished product, but to be constantly changing, moving and growing,” he says. “I’m really proud of this album but I feel like I’ve only just started getting somewhere, and I can hear so much more.”

Villagers plays the O2 Academy Oxford on Monday. Tickets from ticketweb.co.uk