Posts Tagged ‘Dave Okumu’

ED O’BRIEN (EOB) – ” Earth “

Posted: April 22, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Looking across Radiohead members’ solo ventures, Thom Yorke has three albums of his own, the latest being 2019’s ‘ANIMA’; Jonny Greenwood has scored several films, including Paul Thomas Andersen’s ‘There Will Be Blood’; drummer Phil Selway has two records to his name; bassist Colin Greenwood has had the odd deviation from Radiohead duties, but has largely stayed on script. And now Ed O’Brien looks set to break his duck with a debut album in 2020.

Because he is one-fifth of one of the world’s most consistently brilliant and successful bands, it’s a bit jarring to hear that Ed O’Brien still needs to combat the idea that his songs are “shit.” That inner monologue will be familiar to many musicians or creative people working in any medium, an inner critic that tells you whatever it is you’re doing isn’t good enough. But, well, most of our inner critics have a bit more solid evidence to stand on.

There wasn’t years of material. This was all from about summer of 2013 to summer of 2014. I also had to let go of the computer. I don’t respond well to operating as I go along—whether it was Ableton Live or Pro Tools, and they’re great software—but I needed to literally be lost in the moment and not have my engineering head on or whatever. I had a great studio in Oxfordshire which are owned by Radiohead’s management called Courtyard, and there’s a great engineer-producer called Ian Davenport, who’s worked a lot with Gaz Coombes.

His first work as EOB, including lead single ‘Brasil’, is produced by Flood, and is set to feature contributions from Laura Marling, Nathan East and The Invisible’s Dave Okumu, among others. “This feels like the start of something new and truly significant for me,” he told fans on social media in December. He promises to tour the record next year too. Really, I’m excited for the next one. I think every record that you make, you have to be learning, and you’re only learning when you’re out of your comfort zone, and I was out of my comfort zone the whole time.”

Flood and Catherine Marks produced [the record]; Flood produced all of it, Catherine was involved for some of it—and I talked to him a lot about wanting to capture the spirit of a place, and the spirit of this place in Wales, Lands, and to have a fully immersive experience. That we’d eat, sleep, and drink it. I’ve been very fortunate in Radiohead—you know, the first time we did that was with OK Computer—and we’ve done this, this has been a tried and tested route. And what happens is, you kind of get the soul of the record, and you get it in the early stages.

All the same, to hear O’Brien talk about how he was able to silence his own long enough to make “Earth”, his debut solo album released under the EOB moniker, might just help others along their own creative journeys. Conceived while living in Brazil in 2012, begun in earnest in 2013, and recorded in Wales and London with a cast of great musicians, Earth is a testament to an expert collaborator learning how to take control. But it’s no singer-songwriter affair; it’s a rhythmic album, with a pulse that beats even throughout its quietest acoustic moments and rises to festive, electronic heights.

Listen to ‘Earth,’ the new album by EOB (Ed O’Brien of Radiohead).

The INVISIBLE – ” Patience “

Posted: December 12, 2016 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Listen to The Invisible’s new album, Patience, and what you will feel most strongly is the band’s sense of “joy and gratitude for being alive.” The experiences of Dave Okumu (guitar, vocals), Tom Herbert (bass & synthesizer) and Leo Taylor (drums) since the release of their last album, Rispah, both individually and collectively, mean that the group “have gained a deeper understanding of the value of life,” and a mission to communicate that to the listener. On Patience, they achieve these aims with a kind of effortless transcendence.

From the opening bars of the wonderful “So Well”, (featuring their friend and collaborator Jessie Ware), the feeling of joy pervades the record. Although the group have worked on this record with Anna Calvi, Rosie Lowe, Connan Mockasin and Sam Shepherd (Floating Points) as well as Ware, the sense of collective excitement and pleasure in music-making is what holds sway. It’s an album which hints towards the London soul of Ware, but combines it with the experimentation of the LA beat scene (where Dave Okumu went to write many of the songs) and the raw funk of D’Angelo.

Everyone of course knows just what wonderful musicians The Invisible are. They’ve played with just about everyone from Adele to St Vincent, Grace Jones, Britten Sinfonia, Jack DeJohnette, Roots Manuva, Jamie Woon, Hot Chip, Zongamin, Gramme, Yoko Ono, Beck and many others. In addition, Okumu has produced Jessie Ware, Anna Calvi, Paloma Faith, Kwabs, Lilly Wood, Eska and Rosie Lowe and was the recent Musical Director for the acclaimed Gil Scott-Heron Project: Pieces of a Man project as part of the Convergence Festival at London’s Roundhouse.

What’s easier to forget in between albums is just what beautiful, life-affirming music they make. Shortly before the release of Rispah (itself a heartfelt tribute to Okumu’s dead mother), Okumu was electrocuted while playing with the band onstage in Lagos, Nigeria. It’s possible that only the intervention of Herbert, who pulled his guitar off him, saved his life. This personal sense that the band have of deliverance has lead to Patience, not least their sense that they are “the luckiest men alive.”

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Joyous without losing any of its intelligence or compositional rigour, the record takes its title from an unfashionable but profound idea — that, if we want to solve problems we have to be prepared to work and to wait rather than expecting instant results. It was an idea clarified when Dave found himself playing in Paris only a week after the gun attacks which ripped through the city on November 13th 2015. On his way home he read an interview with the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield in which he talked about a realisation that could only have come to him in space: “What started seeping into me on…seeing all the ancient scars, was the incredible temporal patience of the world.”

The Invisible’s first album was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, their second was described as “incredibly uplifting and moving” (Vice), but it’s Patience (as you’d expect, if you understand that good things come to those who wait) that stands—so far!—as the uplifting pinnacle of their remarkable career.