Time Bend And Break The Bower: Limited Edition Clear Vinyl LP

Communing at the triangulation of words, music and image, OBrien has always conjured powerful worlds: but none more powerful, or as immersive, than on her debut record. In the space that exists between her delivery at once wry, silky, vicious, and self-assured and the music a dynamic, dancing call-and-response from her collaborators, guitarist Julian Hanson and drummer Oscar Robertson lies a productive tension. Using a method of creating on-instinct, in constant communication with multisensory cues, OBrien is carving out a space as a musical oracle for an ever-shifting era. The 11-track album was produced by indie super-producer Dan Carey (Fontaines DC, Squid, Black Midi, Kae Temptest, Bat For Lashes, Hot Chip, Franz Ferdinand) and recorded in his south London studio Mr Dans in late 2021.

The story of the album is built up in layers; one song giving context to the next explains Sinead; I thought about becoming undressed; testing my ideas, my voice. Working myself out across themes of identity, curiosity, creative process. Experimenting with the form and shape of language, using tone and delivery to get to the immediate centre of what I am saying. The record opens and closes with poems, these tracks have a really clear direction – a form which is set apart from the songs. I hold stops in different places, moving emphatically through the lyrics, changing the meaning. No punctuation – only the voice mapping out the way.

The album title Time Bend and Break The Bower, from the song Multitudes, came into my head and made its demands, an idea that pressed on me throughout the record. It has a very active role. The clock symbol is enlarged, it looms like a moon over my activity watching, counting me down to zero. Dripping with self-sabotage and the feeling of being chased; it pulls and pushes against the verses which talk of Multitudes; the things that faithfully come back – the images, the words, creativity. It is creativity itself.

Since 2020, OBrien has garnered international critical acclaim from titles like Rolling Stone, DIY, Dazed, Dork, Loud & Quiet, NME, Paste, Stereogum, The FADER, The Guardian, The Quietus, and AnOther Magazine, among others. OBrien has also been consistently supported on national radio: she counts Jack Saunders at BBC Radio 1, and Steve Lamacq and Amy Lam at BBC Radio 6 Music as champions of her music, with the latter station giving two tracks a spot on their B List. And OBrien is building on her US support from the likes of Seattles KEXP alongside appearances at SXSW in virtual form in 2021, and live with her band in Texas later this spring.

With a background on the design teams for John Galliano and, later, Vivienne Westwood, its no surprise that raven-haired OBriens cultural touchstones also span a rich history of art, photography, film, dance and movement: from Helmut Newton femme fatales and Henri Cartier-Bressons bleak landscapes to modern performance by Michael Clark and Michael Laub companies, to the writings of Virginia Woolf and Samuel Beckett. Recently tapped by Alessandro Miceles Gucci to perform, its clear that OBriens esoteric instincts will continue to inspire those beyond the industry as well as within it.