Ed O'Brien links the dark period behind Blue Morpho to his childhood

Ed O'Brien now sees the dark period behind Blue Morpho, his second solo album, as a passage of life. Carl Jung calls it the process of individuation,¹ he told Lala Toutonian, in our translation, on a video call during the British summer. Rolling Stone en Español ran the interview, in Spanish, on 29 October.

O'Brien would not go into the subject of depression, though he calls the period an important stage in his life. It also had to do with the fact that I hadn't processed the ghost of my childhood, things I had never talked about or resolved.¹

Music and nature brought him through. He walks the hills near the home in Wales he has had for 12 years. Asked about the Wim Hof method of breathing and ice-cold water, he says cold water is in what he calls his toolbox, and it helped while he was depressed. With it as a habit he had three hours after waking when he was not exhausted, and he spent them playing guitar in the room he was talking from.

On Earth, his first solo album, he says he forced things; on Blue Morpho he let go, following small pieces of music without knowing where they led. What matters to him now is his music and his family. I need other people less and less.¹