Cited by Rolling Stone as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, Ed O’Brien built his reputation as the architect of Radiohead’s sonic landscapes. However, by the time of A Moon Shaped Pool, he was yearning for something fresh and the chance to further explore his potential as a songwriter.
Following on from his debut album Earth—which was partly shaped by his time spent in Brazil, as well as his strong connection to nature—Blue Morpho sees Ed O’Brien truly step out of the shadows, dropping the EOB moniker in creation of an album that feels both deeply honest and seamlessly balanced.
In a candid conversation with Qobuz, he spoke about his time spent in Brazil, his new attitude towards his music, his love for the album process, and his deep connection to Wales.
When it comes to guitarists, you’ve cited the likes of Paul Weller, Johnny Marr, The Edge, and Andy Summers as some of your main influences. What sets them apart from other greats?
Paul Weller and The Edge: energy. Johnny Marr: beauty. The Edge too, but I would say that Marr’s guitar parts were the most beautiful. The Edge: inventive. His sound was unreal. Andy Summers: his sound was unreal too, but he had incredible technique as well, just extraordinary. So melodic, and a lot of space in his playing. So all of those.
I’d also add John McGeoch as well, that whole time, that whole kind of post-punk thing… There were influences, particularly for Andy Summers, like reggae and dub in his blues. But the whole post-punk thing was a deeply inventive time. We’d had the whole blues and rock thing, and they were trying to move away from that. For me as a kid born in ’68, Top of the Pops really got on my radar around the time of punk and that whole thing, so I was into all these sounds. It was great.
Your first album, Earth, was largely written in Brazil, and there are also nods to that time on Blue Morpho—the album title, as well as tracks such as “Obrigado”. How important was your time in Brazil for your evolution as an artist?
I think, more importantly, I went there with my family. The kids were little—they were six and eight when we went. It was about having an extraordinary family experience, which it was, and living somewhere new. We were out in the wilds; we weren’t in a city. It was very rural. The kids went to the local village school. Nobody could speak English, they couldn’t speak any Portuguese, and they learned, so we had all these extraordinary experiences. It was more about having this incredible life experience.
My relationship with Brazil starts with football, really, as for so many of us who grew up loving Brazil. But then in ’97, I discovered Brazilian music through this Red Hot + Rio compilation. I never really knew about it before, and then there was Tamba Trio, and obviously João Gilberto and all this stuff. So I think it’s more about the country; it’s about what it makes me feel. I was in Brazil last year for a bit, and then we went back at Christmas. There’s something about the spirit of that land and the people—I know that’s a huge generalisation to make—but there’s a feeling I get in parts of Brazil that makes me feel alive. For whatever reason, I really resonate with it, and that comes out in the music as well. It’s inspiring.
This is your first album purely as Ed O’Brien. Is there a deeper relevance to that?
I guess I’ve stopped hiding and I’ve stopped caring about what people think about me. I sort of let go. Making this record came out of a deep night of the soul, a long period, and it was a kind of death of the ego. In that process, I just stopped caring what people thought about what I did. I was like, some people might like it, some people might not like it—it’s all good. I’m just thankful to be able to do it, that someone will put the record out, and I deeply love the process. I just realised I’d been hiding all my life, and I’m just done with hiding. This is me, take it or leave it.
How have you combined your skills from your more supportive role with Radiohead, building the band’s sonic backdrops, with being the central figure of your solo project?
A lot of the stuff gets written on acoustic guitar. I think when I connect with a piece of music, there’s usually a sound that accompanies that. My role in Radiohead was sound, serving the song and the sound of the song. What I found is that when the music emerges, I kind of feel the sonic template for the song. I am able to—because I guess that’s my strength—say, “Okay, it’s like this, we put it through that,” or “It’s like this, put it up front.”
The big difference is, in Radiohead, I had a lot of time because I’m not singing, I’m not writing lyrics, and there are four other people. I had a lot of time to do a lot of R&D sonically. I always used to get in the studio an hour early before we recorded and just play with my pedalboard and work on sounds and parts. Now I just don’t have time to do that. I’m relying a lot on what I know and what works. What I’m going to do now between records is start doing a bit of sonic R&D for the next stage. Once we get into the record, I don’t have time because I’m working on lyrics and vocals a lot more, as well as arrangements and bigger-picture stuff. They’re two very different things, but I love doing both of them.
On the Radiohead tour, I was allowed to do something different, something old, which for me was getting nerdy on sounds and pedalboards. They’re both fun things. But by the time of A Moon Shaped Pool, one of my frustrations with myself was that I needed to do something else. I was done with making sounds. I wanted to write songs, record them, get better as a songwriter, and play acoustic and rhythm guitar.
You collaborated with producers Paul Epworth and Riley MacIntyre (Ezra Collective) for Blue Morpho, as well as Shabaka Hutchings, Dave Okumu, Eska, Philip Selway and The Tallinn Chamber Orchestra. What did each bring to the album?
Well, I should pick out Paul and Riley first of all because they were my main collaborators. They were there from the beginning through to the end. Incredibly talented, incredibly musical, they both write, they both play, so that’s always been really useful. They’re also brilliant human beings. Everybody who played or has been on the record is just a stellar soul. That is so important. The energy and the soul that people bring is as important as their musicality. That musicality is heightened by the fact of who these people are.
I should mention Dave Okumu. Dave also played on the first record. He’s an incredible human being and musician, and he brought his Seven Gens (Seven Generations) band to be the bulk of the players, so he brought Eska along. He also knew Shabaka, but I met Shabaka separately at Glastonbury a few years back. It was that year that he said at the end of the year he was going to put the saxophone down and just play flute. I was intrigued and saw a flute set that he did in the Crow’s Nest. I basically went to talk to him afterwards about 432 Hz, the frequency.
Everybody brought so much. This record is the sum of its parts. I’m so grateful for these players—Philip playing drums on “Sweet Spot” and “Blue Morpho,” he not only brings the music, but he brings his soul to it. It’s this beautiful patchwork of all these people, and the art of it is making it cohesive, providing the umbrella or the forum where all these people can shine. That’s what I love about what I do now. I have these lovely serendipitous or synchronistic moments where people come in and go out, but they leave something. Shabaka was only with us for an afternoon, but what he did was just extraordinary. Everybody brings so much.
The album feels like a dovetailing of multiple parts: a strong connection with nature, true creative freedom, a new-found confidence as a solo artist. Is this the most complete you’ve felt as an artist?
Yeah, definitely. In Radiohead, it’s a different thing because it’s like a five-limbed organism, which is a beautiful thing. But in terms of my own work—I’ve only made two records—this feels whole. You’re never complete, but I feel like it’s truly representative of where I am. What I love about it is that, while making the album, I’ve discovered a real process, and the essence of that is just letting go. Once I learned to let go, it just started to flow.
That’s why I love it. I don’t know what I’m doing; I’m just going on feel, asking myself, “Does that feel right?” It’s a mystery to me, it’s magical, and I find it completely intriguing, all-absorbing, and just amazing. At the heart of it is my love for the whole process, whether it’s flowing nicely or when it gets challenging, as it inevitably does. That probably underlies and underpins everything in the record.
Like Brazil, Wales seems to have played a key role in the creation of Blue Morpho. What impact has Wales had on you and your music, and how does it differ to Brazil in that sense?
It’s huge. Wales has played a massive part, and particularly Mid Wales. It’s an old, ancient land, that’s what I feel, and I feel alive in this place. It’s funny, I’ve lived in lots of different places and been all over the world, but when I discovered Mid Wales in 2013, I suddenly felt, “Oh, I’m home.” There’s a beauty here that is so unique, it’s still wild, and it’s very Celtic. I did my DNA during lockdown and I’m 69% from the province of Munster in Ireland, mixed in with some Scottish and a little bit of Welsh, so there’s a deep Celtic thing there, and I resonate hugely with it.
I find it deeply, for want of a better word, healing. It recalibrates me and inspires me. I light a fire in the winter, I go for a walk, and you really feel the seasons distinctly—the winter, the spring, the summer, and the autumn. This is my home; I love this country. I’m not Welsh, but I don’t think it’s about that. I love the language, and once I’ve got a bit of time, I want to start learning Welsh. I think the indigenous language of a place carries so much of its essence, its truth, and its stories.
You seem to have landed in a really good place both musically and personally with Blue Morpho…
Musically, definitely. Personally, I’m in a better place. There’s always stuff going on, but musically, yeah, I feel it. My analogy was very similar to when Radiohead made Pablo Honey—we didn’t really know what we were doing, and it took us until the second album to really get our shit together, even though ironically we had our biggest hit, “Creep,” on the first one.
In spite of the incredible personnel I was working with on my first solo record—Flood, David, Catherine Marks, Omar Hakim, Nathan East—I didn’t really know what I was doing. I didn’t really realize what was required of me in a funny kind of way. It was a great learning curve and a rude awakening at times. But with this one, I feel like I know what’s required of me and the kind of levels you have to go to. In the same way that we got our shit together on The Bends, I think I got my shit together for Blue Morpho a bit more.