ED O'BRIEN - Blue Morpho

A timid first step in 2020 with "Earth": that's how the solo career of the most elegant member of Radiohead took shape. Ed O'Brien's use of an initialism, EOB, confirmed the artist's reserved style, but was also born of insecurities tied to depression, the very same depression now stirring the waters of the Oxford musician's new album.

"Blue Morpho" is an album as personal as it is choral, born from the English guitarist and percussionist's many creative exchanges – his meeting with Shabaka Hutchings at the Glastonbury festival, a chance encounter on a school trip with Paul Epworth (already producer for Paul McCartney and Adele), the trip to Estonia and the friendship that blossomed there with Tõnu Kõrvits, responsible for the string arrangements and for bringing in the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra – and which finally takes shape with the presence of Dave Okumu on guitar, Crispin Robinson on percussion, Nick Ramm on keyboards and Phil Selway, O'Brien's former Radiohead bandmate, on drums.

Like the beat of wings that catches the eye, "Blue Morpho" stirs sensations that defy the relentless passage of time. O'Brien sets to music his nightmares and the traumatic suffering of post-depression with a clarity and boldness that cut through the darkness with sonic strokes tinted blue, the same shades as the great Brazilian butterfly Ed marvelled at while living in Brazil.

With "Blue Morpho", O'Brien breaks free from his role as a member of Radiohead, an evolution that doesn't cut ties with the band but instead develops its most winding and shape-shifting sounds, setting aside the melancholic folk-psych nuances more tied to the song format, following in his bandmates' footsteps in this sense, but with a dialectic that constantly keeps the more soporific nuances of post-"Kid A" Radiohead at bay.

The opening track, "Incantations", immediately sets the coordinates with a hypnotic, velvety post-rock surge that toward the end absorbs psychedelia, kraut-rock, space-rock and shards of neo-jazz, a perfect introduction to the swaying string textures and the swirling voices and instruments of the title track (which for a moment recall the partnership between Robert Kirby and Nick Drake), the first genuine surprise on an album of expansive creative scope.

The tribal-funk jolt laced with psych-rock in "Teachers" and the dreamlike journey of acoustic guitars, voices and floating instruments that takes shape toward the end of "Sweet Spot" are the two moments closest to O'Brien's shared past with the band. But it's within the nuances of the two shortest, most intense tracks, "Solfeggio" (gripping and sensual) and "Thin Places" (ethereal and suspended like a breath in silence), that lies the key to unlocking the deep, meticulous craftsmanship behind "Blue Morpho". Still, the album's true strength lies in the closing nearly ten minutes of "Obrigado", a psych-soul-inflected bossa nova where the Temptations of "Masterpiece" meet the thematic digressions of Pink Floyd and Os Mutantes. A sensory experience that evolves into an unprecedented form of spirituality, one that exalts every musical component made available by an artist in full creative euphoria, who has carefully chosen the fellow travellers for a decidedly unconventional record.

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30/05/2026