Ed O'Brien releases “Incantations”, the opening track of Blue Morpho

Ed O'Brien has released “Incantations”, the opening track of Blue Morpho, as the album's second single after the title track, putting it out for Earth Day on 22 April. It runs to almost eight minutes and is built on interlocking guitars by Dave Okumu, the album's musical director, who also leads the live band. Blue Morpho is out on Transgressive on 22 May.

It was one of the first songs O'Brien wrote for the record, during his depression. When I was in this dark place, I felt like I was lost in a labyrinth.⁶ In March, when the album was announced, he told Rolling Stone that he found the way out as Theseus did, by following Ariadne's thread, the Greek myth that ran through the artwork of Amnesiac.

Release week adds three In Conversation evenings, presented with record shops. Each comes with a screening of his short film Blue Morpho: The Three Act Play, directed by Kit Monteith and shot in Wales. It has been shown in London, Oxford and Paris since its premiere at SXSW in March. In mid-May he joins Nadine Shah at The Great Escape conference in Brighton to talk about music and mental health with the charity CALM. The London night of his October tour, at the Barbican on 16 October, sold out in under a day.

In Conversation, May 2026