O (Damien Rice album)
2002 album by Damien Rice
O is the debut studio album by Irish musician Damien Rice, originally released on 1 February 2002, in Ireland and in the United Kingdom. The album is dedicated to Rice's friend Mic Christopher, a musician who died of a head injury shortly before the album's release at the end of 2001.
Background
Damien Rice was previously a member of the band Juniper, and upon its disbandment due to changes in creative direction, he took a sabbatical in rural Italy before returning to Ireland. He would meet with his second cousin, composer David Arnold who was impressed upon hearing Rice's songs and sent Rice's demo to music publishers to no success. Frustrated, Arnold worked with Rice to set up recording equipment for a home studio to make the album independently. He describes receiving a $500 loan from his father that would be forgiven on completion of the album. The recording process included opera singers, Gregorian chants, and a heavy influence from Lisa Hannigan, at the time Rice's personal and professional partner.
Rice wanted to release the album without the backing of a major record label, believing if he signed such a deal it would compromise his future work, forcing him to move in directions he did not wish to. The album was released as "CD-sized hardcover book filled with personal artwork, lyrics, and photos." In 2003, it would get distribution support from Vector Records for the global release, a then-newly established label focused on independent artists.
He later described his motivation as wanting "to forget about everybody else and make the next record that we're making just for ourselves again, because there's something about being in a space where you're not thinking of other people.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1754008. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2002, 2001 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “O (Damien Rice album)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.