EOB (Ed O’Brien) – “Santa Teresa”

Andrew Benge/Redferns

EOB (Ed O’Brien) – “Santa Teresa”

Andrew Benge/Redferns

Right now, 60% of the members of Radiohead have solo careers going. Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Philip Selway have all released albums of their own — all of which sound radically different from one another, and all of which sound pretty different from Radiohead, too. And it looks like the Radiohead/solo-artist ratio is about to reach 80%. Today, guitarist Ed O’Brien has released his first solo single.

Ed O’Brien has been talking about making a solo album since at least 2016. In a BBC interview three years ago, O’Brien said that he was inspired by the time he spent living with his family on the Brazilian countryside and by an experience that he’d had at Carnival. More recently, O’Brien has been teasing music. Today, he released a song under the name EOB. It’s called “Santa Teresa,” and it’s a haunting, keening ambient instrumental.

O’Brien hasn’t yet announced an album, but on Twitter last night, he wrote, “This is the sound of Santa Teresa…” and promised “songs to come soon.” There’s nothing noticeably Brazilian about the song itself; it’s more of a Brian Eno/Fennesz emotional-soundscape type of deal. But Santa Teresa is a hilltop district in Rio de Janeiro, so maybe Brazil informed the song in ways that we just can’t see. Listen to “Santa Teresa” below.

So what’s Colin Greenwood up to, anyway? When’s his solo record coming out?

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