Earth vinyl

In many ways, the debut solo album from Ed O'Brien could have sounded like anything - the Radiohead guitarist has been involved in plenty of sonic experimentations with that outfit, while comrade in arms Thom Yorke has managed to triumph both on the indie rock and electronic club music circuits, elements that could easily have found their way onto this record. The truth is 'Earth' doesn't really sound like Radiohead, or most contemporary electronic permutations. You could almost argue there is an air of nostalgia running through the release, certainly 'Shangri-La' feels that way, shades of Madchester and the great indie-dance crossover days are more than audible. From there we have lo-fi pop edginess ('Banksters'), the sweet and innocent acoustic job 'Long Time Coming', and the breathy, loose, broken and floaty 'Olympik'. In short, it grooves, grows, ebbs and flows in a way that shows a true master at work.