Ed O'Brien: Blue Morpho

Radiohead remained present through members’ side projects, while Ed O’Brien stood out as politically engaged but largely avoiding public attention. After releasing his first album under the name EOB in 2020, promotion was disrupted by the pandemic, and he later described going into a deep depression and experiencing a midlife crisis during 2021. As Radiohead faced an uncertain impasse, he confronted a future without a clear path. During that period of stasis and self-doubt, he developed seeds for a more confident and cohesive second album. Blue Morpho draws on his early-2010s time living in Brazil and is named for a rare butterfly species he spotted there.

"Ed O'Brien has lived up to his reputation as Radiohead's resident enigma. He is the band's most politically engaged yet most reclusive member, fond of pointed social-media statements while largely avoiding the limelight since releasing his first album, , under the name EOB back in the spring of 2020."

""I went into a deep depression," he recently told Rolling Stone, as he spent much of 2021 grappling with what he now dubs a "midlife crisis." While the world started turning again, the band that had governed his life for over 30 years remained at an uncertain impasse, and for the first time in his career, he was staring down a future with no clear path forward."

"But in that moment of stasis and self-doubt, O'Brien planted the seeds for a far more confident and cohesive work than his hodgepodge of a debut. Like its predecessor, O'Brien's second album (and first under his full name), Blue Morpho, hearkens back to his time living in Brazil in the early 2010s-it's named for a rare species of butterfly that he spotted during his travels in the country."

Read at Pitchfork