Ed O'Brien on Beneath The Stream

Ed O'Brien talks to Colin Williams and Ian Rowlands, whose podcast is about the human experience of the non-human world, about getting into nature, the writing of Earth and its early demos.

The hosts open with a premise of their own, that a surprising number of well-loved records and books were made in retreat. They run through several made in cottages, cabins and a fire lookout tower, and what interests them is what isolation does to the rhythm of a day and to the way someone writes.

O'Brien is there because Earth was written in mid Wales, and he found the place almost by accident. The family had rented a cottage near Rhayader in the Elan Valley, on a farm beside the river with gnarled old oaks around it, and on arriving he knew this was where he wanted to write.

Once the holiday was over and the children were back at school, he negotiated a three-week pass and went back alone to work.