Ed O’Brien – Blue Morpho

(Transgressive Records)

Is Blue Morpho just another Radiohead side quest? Or is it something more?

Blue Morpho is Ed O’Brien’s metamorphosis put into sound. It’s a beautiful, textured and meditative journey through the emotional learnings and realisations of a man coming out the other side of a self-proclaimed midlife crisis.

Released on May 22, 2026, Blue Morpho is technically Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien’s second solo release, but it doesn’t feel that way. Ed has seemingly evolved past his debut effort, 2020’s Earth, and infused this new work with an entirely different personality. He even released it under his full name instead of the EOB name he used for Earth. After listening to the album, it’s clear this guy has been through some shit. He’s evolved into a new Ed, and this album reflects that, touching on constant themes of change, metamorphosis and breaking through to a better you.

Here, Ed is inviting us into his cocoon. He’s beckoning us to sit in the fire, letting it burn until our skin is blistered and callused. Maybe then the bullshit of the world around us might not seem so bad.

It’s an atmospheric, carefully put together piece of art with soft edges that breathe and grow. There’s a constant feeling of trying to fly away whilst being tethered down. It’s not an album to throw on for a dinner party, or any party for that matter. Unless, of course, you want your guests to go home and rethink their existence. It’s an album about connecting to nature and letting it strip away the messy shit.

Going into the album, it’s safe to say one might understandably have expectations. Let’s make this clear: it’s not like we’re dealing with an unknown artist here. Ed isn’t someone trying to get noticed. He’s not someone trying to figure out where he fits into the endless ocean of talent already out there. It’s actually quite the opposite. You could say Ed is part of the reason the ocean is so endless.

Being a founding and integral member of Radiohead must come with some weight to carry, but on Blue Morpho, Ed seems to effortlessly pick up that weight, carry it out into the middle of a forest and watch it grow into a butterfly.

For a bit of context, Ed O’Brien is a guitarist and backing vocalist in Radiohead. He is primarily responsible for the ambient textures and droning guitar effects heard throughout their discography. He has said his job in the band is to service the music and support the main songwriter.

After decades of focusing on touring and songwriting with Radiohead, Ed released Earth in 2020 under the name EOB. Around that same time, the world fell into a massive pandemic and the Earth tour was cut short. All of this greatly affected Ed, on top of already feeling unsure about himself creatively and where he fit in. He fell into a deep depression for a few years, describing it as a midlife crisis or crisis of the soul. Turning heavily toward music, nature and spirituality, Ed overcame this dark time and turned the experience into his healing new album, Blue Morpho.

With the Radiohead ambience he does so well on full display here, Ed still manages to craft something of his own. It feels slightly familiar without pulling us into an alternate reality where Thom doesn’t exist.

He is joined by Philip Selway, his outrageously good drummer and Radiohead bandmate, on ‘Blue Morpho’ and ‘Sweet Spot’, adding a familiar comfort to a new realm. With gorgeous sweeping orchestral strings provided by the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra out of Estonia, as well as an array of other talented support musicians, Ed has crafted an interesting contrast. It feels large and grand in scale, yet somehow still very grounded and internalised.

It’s a definite improvement from his debut, which was a folky, dance-injected love letter to Brazil, where O’Brien lived and fell in love in the early 2010s. On Blue Morpho, you can still hear those Brazilian-inspired rhythms and dancing drumbeats shine through at times, especially on the closing track, ‘Obrigado’. However, Blue Morpho leans further into ambience, elegantly filling the spaces between more vibrant and upbeat tones with emotion. Then it invites us to sit in that emotion and ponder for a while.

At 38 minutes in length, Blue Morpho knows exactly how long to stay before overstepping its welcome. Sitting somewhere around psychedelic folk and chamber folk, and even including two completely ambient tracks with no vocals at all, it really allows the textures to paint the picture.

The progressive opener ‘Incantations’ sets the tone with breezy guitar strings before layers of instrumentation are introduced: conga drums, bass and gorgeous, angelic backing vocals. It all morphs into a catchy yet unsettling opener, giving off the feeling of being wrapped up and dragged down into a hole. Lyrically, it references feeling stuck, running from past traumas and demons that will always inevitably catch up. A feeling most people have experienced at some point in their lives.

As the album moves, we’re given little glimmers of hope. From birds chirping in the background of the title track to the textures becoming happier and more optimistic, Ed clearly knows how to add depth to a song through creative backing vocals and tones. He uses that skill so well here, sticking to what he does best and not trying to do too much.

He knows his message lands better as a whisper or a thought instead of a yell. It’s almost as if the whole album is driven by background vocals with no lead. Which shouldn’t work, yet somehow… it does.

Once you hit the third track, ‘Sweet Spot’, you notice a shift. It’s like the sun rising and throwing light over what has, until now, seemed too dark to see. As the album moves away from the darker underlying tones, it starts to feel warm and inviting.

After ‘Sweet Spot’ we get the most upbeat track on the record, ‘Teachers’. It’s a funkier song with a punchy bassline dancing and weaving its way through shimmering drums, eerie vocals and melodic chants. Following the sombre start to the album, ‘Teachers’ feels like a realisation starting to unfold. It’ll undoubtedly get your head bopping and your foot tapping.

After the upbeat realisation of ‘Teachers’, the pace slows right down once more, falling into the two ambient tracks ‘Solfeggio’ and ‘Thin Places’. These two tracks are significantly shorter than anything else on the album, both sitting at around two and a half minutes. ‘Solfeggio’ derives its name from the spiritual practice of sound therapy, where it’s believed certain frequencies hold healing properties. These two ambient tracks feel like just that. A small moment of reflection and meditation. And if you allow them to, they’ll transport you somewhere serene.

Then, right when you’re about to drift off to sleep, ‘Obrigado’ comes crashing in. The word “obrigado” literally translates to “thank you” in Portuguese, and it’s by far the warmest song on the record, finishing it all off very nicely.

The track is broken into two distinct parts, so much so that when you look at the grooves on the vinyl, you can clearly see where it changes. The first part is very Brazilian-inspired, with thumping drums and twinkling percussive accents, lyrically referencing sunny days and birds singing. It gives off a real sense of a new self and a future filled with optimism.

Then, in the second part, those swinging rhythms stop and the atmosphere changes. The drums slow and become more of a tiptoe than a run. Psych-tinged, weeping electric guitar bubbles and boils through, all stitched together by a magnetic, echoey cry. It almost steps into Pink Floyd territory. It’s like reaching a realisation of striking beauty as you watch the butterfly break free and spread its wings. A representation of the future: unsure and scary, yet so damn beautiful at the same time.

All in all, Blue Morpho is a unique experience. Ed demonstrates that he is almost like the George Harrison of Radiohead, much more interested in exploring spirituality and emotional self-expression than putting out infinitely streamable hits.

The pacing can be a bit discombobulating, especially for the first couple of listens, but it won’t take long before it gets under your skin. Like any good psychedelic-infused music, it gets better with more listens, as the brain starts to unscramble what’s going on. In my opinion, that’s what makes psych music so special.

Some of the lyrics are a little dull at times, but that’s no dealbreaker. The lyrics aren’t really what’s supposed to land with Blue Morpho anyway.

It won’t be everybody’s cup of tea, that’s for sure. It’s not one of those albums that can be thrown on at any time of day, for any situation. But that isn’t what Ed O’Brien set out to build here.

Blue Morpho feels important. It drives in its own lane. It’s probably best listened to alone, at night, after a really shit day. And that’s just fine. We need albums like this for those times, just as much as we need the high-budget crap and the albums that get us through breakups.

Ultimately, Blue Morpho is a record I’m proud to add to my collection.

Thank you Ed, hope to hear more from you soon.

Stream the album — Ed O'Brien, Blue Morpho — in full