Ed O'Brien releases “Brasil”, the first sung song from his EOB album

Ed O'Brien has released “Brasil” under the name EOB, the first song with his voice on it from the debut album he announced to fans on Monday. Colin Greenwood plays bass on it.

The song runs nearly nine minutes. It opens on Ed's voice and acoustic guitar alone and grows into a long, driving motorik stretch, with Omar Hakim on drums and David Okumu on guitar. Of the title, Ed says Brasil is a state of mind, not a place or time.¹

The album, recorded between the autumn of 2017 and early 2019 and produced by Flood, is due early in 2020 with no title or date yet. “Santa Teresa”, the ambient piece Ed put out in October as his first solo release, is not on the album.

The film is nearly as long as the song, directed by Andrew Donoho. Ed says H.P. Lovecraft, Stanley Kubrick and Junji Ito made some of his favourite science fiction, and he had always wanted to turn their horror premises into something poetic and hopeful. Pitchfork has his statement. In the film a presence arrives on Earth, finds people and changes them, and what it brings is closer to communion than conquest. What if an alien or higher being were to come to earth to help us achieve a greater existence, and not to destroy us?¹

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