Ed O’Brien is best known as one of Radiohead’s guitarists but, much like his bandmates, he has forged an impressive path away from his day job with the trailblazing indie icons. His solo debut ‘Earth’ was released in 2020, showing plenty of ambition, and he has honed his craft further with ‘Blue Morpho’. It’s, as one would expect, an eclectic mix, neatly showcasing O’Brien’s skills as both a guitarist and songwriter.
The album is bookended by two epics. Incantations comes in at close to eight minutes, starting slowly with O’Brien’s vocals and guitar doing much of the heavy lifting over Latin rhythms. There are certainly shades of some of Radiohead’s more experimental music, particularly ‘Kid A’ or ‘In Rainbows’, but rather than employing electronic sounds there is something more organic and spiritual at play here.
The second weighty piece is the closer, Obrigado, which takes a similar palette and sets off towards a prog-rock sound. It feels like a marriage of O’Brien’s interests, cut with a love of world music.
Some of the jazzy beats recall The Smile, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood’s band with Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner, while the second half of the track is more out there, O’Brien showcasing his virtuosic guitar work. Here, he’s more in tune with Steven Wilson or Pink Floyd than Bossa Nova.
‘Blue Morpho’ is a clear labour of love for O’Brien. Sweet Spot is a beautifully melancholic track, with a strong classical influence in places — it’s more laid back but no less striking. Teachers, meanwhile, feels more like a straight-up alt-rock song and once it gets going there is looseness and angst to it.
This record feels like O’Brien finding his voice as a solo artist. While his debut showed plenty of promise, this is a cohesive, expansive collection that contains the breadth we’d expect from a member of Radiohead. It stands on its own as an exciting collection that pulls from across the planet in terms of influences — it really demonstrates his value as a musician in his own right and we can only hope there isn’t a six year wait before his next project.
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