Ed O’Brien

Born in 1968 in England and educated in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, Ed O’Brien has developed since the mid-1980s a guitar approach focused on textures, ambient washes and countermelodies, at the intersection of alternative rock, atmospheric pop and an ambient sensibility. Within Radiohead, which he founded with Thom Yorke, Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood and Philip Selway while at school, Ed O’Brien occupies a distinctive position: he supports songs through tonal and coloristic work rather than through solos, while regularly providing backing vocals. This approach is evident both on the band’s early records—Pablo Honey (1993), The Bends (1995) and OK Computer (1997)—and on the group’s more electronic and experimental turn with Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001). Outside Radiohead, Ed O’Brien took part in the collective project 7 Worlds Collide organized around Neil Finn, and later released his solo music under the name EOB with Earth in 2020, an album nourished by his stay in Brazil and by influences ranging from psychedelic pop to more open, luminous rhythms. A second album, Blue Morpho, has been announced for 2026, this time under the name Ed O’Brien.