Updated May 22, 2026 09:18AM
Brazilian shamans, psychedelics, breathwork, cold plunging. Ed O’Brien, the British songwriter and guitarist best known for his work with Radiohead, has embraced it all as part of his healing journey. “I am drawn to phenomena that are on the fringes and things you can’t explain,” he told Outside on a call from London. “I believe in magic. It’s inherent to music-making. Music doesn’t come from studied, accumulated knowledge. It comes through you.”
Magic and mysticism are key themes in O’Brien’s second solo album, Blue Morpho, which dropped May 22. Four years in the making, the project is both an album and a short film conceived from a period of personal challenge. O’Brien is also appearing at Outside Inc.’s annual festival Outside Days on Sunday, May 31, where he will screen his short film and participate in a live fireside chat on the Ideas Stage.
Blue Morpho is named for the iridescent blue butterfly O’Brien encountered while living in Brazil with his family in the early 2010s. Like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, O’Brien underwent his own metamorphosis; a sort of creative reinvention born from a place of darkness. In April 2020, amidst the COVID pandemic shutdown, O’Brien fell into a deep depression, or what he calls, “my dark night of the soul.” He found solace in his music, but also in nature. During that time, O’Brien moved from London to his family home in Wales. His daily walks through the ancient Celtic landscape of Wales stirred a deep spiritual awakening within him, he said. “This land is like my cathedral,” he says in the ten-minute film, which premieres on YouTube June 3.
The film, which is narrated by O’Brien and set to the soundtrack of Blue Morpho, follows the musician as he wanders through the woods, dips his hands in the cool water of a river, looks out at a lake, and gazes at the night sky. Most of the footage was shot on the grounds of his home or nearby. “When you make something deeply emotional or multi-layered, it’s often hard to explain it only in words,” he said on the call. “Images and references say one thousand things. The film was a way to share how the Welsh landscape played a very important role in shaping the music and me. When you are somewhere really wild and powerful energetically it has an enormous effect on you.”
The film was shot in winter, giving it a dark moodiness fitting of an album that came out of a dark place. But the music is far from dark. Songs feel introspective and soulful, blending elements of psych-folk, jazz-influenced textures, and ambient sound. O’Brien recorded Blue Morpho between London and the Welsh countryside with producer Paul Epworth, known for his work with acts like Paul McCartney and Adele, and collaborated with musical talents including flautist Shabaka Hutchings, guitarist Dave Okumu, Radiohead’s drummer Philip Selway, and the Estonian composer Tõnu Kõrvits. The entire album was recorded at 432 Hz, which is known as a universal harmonic. “When you listen to the music you feel calm, that’s part of the magic of 432 Hz,” he said. “It feels deeply whole. I’m not going back to 444.”
Embracing Alternative Healing
O’Brien has been on a healing journey for 30-some years. “Ironically, I come from a family of osteopaths who love prescribing drugs,” he said. “They were horrified at the idea of me going to see a healer in Brazil because it wasn’t scientific. But I’ve always been interested in how people in other parts of the world approach medicine and healing.”
Over the years, O’Brien has sought out natural remedies for chronic back pain and sinus issues but then started to go deeper. “Like an onion, there are so many layers to the body, and I realized wellbeing starts in an emotional place,” he said. “I started to feel my way through things and experiment with Tibetan medicine, acupuncture, mushrooms. It’s had a profound impact on me.”
While struggling with depression, O’Brien embraced the practices of Wim Hof, the Dutch health guru known for his extreme cold tolerance. A cold shower is now part of his daily routine. “It’s amazing what the cold does to the vagus nerve,” he said, referring to the nerve that influences the body’s parasympathetic nervous system. Meditation is another part of what he calls his healing “tool kit.”
“I’m a mongrel meditator,” he joked. “I taught myself 20 years ago, but I still intend to find a teacher.” Each morning he spends 25 minutes meditating and concludes the session with thoughts of gratitude.
Growth Through Challenge
O’Brien tried to evoke the emotions and sensations he’d felt on a psilocybin trip on Blue Morpho’s funky tune, “Teachers”. Each year, he and a handful of close friends spend three days camping in England’s Dartmoor National Park and they bring mushrooms. “It’s become a ritual,” he said. “The amazing thing about mushrooms is it takes you out of your head and you feel the beauty of Mother Earth. It’s plant medicine. I feel reconnected after those weekends.”
O’Brien said his dark period turned out to be one of the most important chapters of his life. “I’m so thankful for that dark time,” he said. “I wouldn’t have moved forward without it. Only when we suffer and face challenges do we evolve. Evolution doesn’t happen when everything is in balance.”
O’Brien said one of his favorite phrases is: “You got this.” On the days when he didn’t want to get out of bed, he’d tell himself to just put one foot in front of the other. “I really believe we have to be careful in modern society not to have such an aversion to pain,” he said. “People are so much more resilient and capable than they realize.”
The Power of Walking
Walks through the countryside with his rescue dog Ziggy, a Collie Springer mix, helped pull O’Brien out of his depression. “I’d get in my battered old Land Rover and drive to the foothills of Snowdonia National Park and go on long, glorious walks,” he recalled.
“Ziggy and I would watch the sun go down over the Irish sea, then head back through the hills. It was right in the middle of winter and the sunsets at that time of year are beautiful. They hold the promise of warmer days to come.”
O’Brien’s walking routine remains a big part of his day, he said. “It helps me to recalibrate and reset my connection with my spirituality,” the guitarist told Outside. “It’s incredible to think that people have been walking these trails for thousands of years. I marvel at how they carve through the landscape and follow the rivers and streams.”
His walking practice has also reconnected him to the rhythm of the seasons. “I love the seasons,” he said. “It stirs me in special ways. I think living in cities, it’s easy to ignore the seasons. But I think there is something primal about living by the seasons. They help root us through change. Certain parts of the seasons are ingrained in my psyche like lighting a fire in the winter months and smelling the wood burning.”
O’Brien is already strategizing how to maintain his connection to nature as he returns to the stage. He’s still dreaming up how to present Blue Morpho live. But Radiohead embarked on their first tour in seven years in late 2025. The band is performing a unique in-the-round format, playing from a central stage.
Starting in 2027, every year they will be traveling to a different continent and performing 20 shows each year. “I try not to be a diva, but I do request a room with a balcony or outside space,” he said. “And I seek out parks every chance I get. After my dark time, I feel increasingly drawn to the beauty that surrounds us in the natural world. It’s become a lifeline.”
Jen Murphy is a regular contributor to Outside. She still has a CD of Radiohead’s hit album, OK Computer.
