Radiohead haven’t released an album since 2016, but the band’s frontman, Thom Yorke, has been on an extraordinary run of studio creativity lately, laying down three great albums with the Smile, his band with Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood and jazz drummer Tom Skinner. And it turns out that since 2020, Yorke has been quietly enmeshed in another collaboration, piecing together a sublime new album with veteran electronic producer Mark Pritchard. “Tall Tales”, due May 9th on Warp Records. It’s accompanied by an intensely trippy animated film by artist Jonathan Zawada, which is set for a one-day theatrical release sometime soon. The duo already dropped the eerie single “Back in the Game”; with a second song, “This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice,” .
From the haunted-house ballad “The White Cliffs” to the pulsing, drumless uplift of “The Spirit” (“I keep the spirit alive,” Yorke sings, in one of his most unabashedly anthemic moments since “The Bends“) to the eight-bit freak-out of “Gangsters,” “Tall Tales” feels like the most fully realized of Yorke’s non-band projects, a prog-tronic sonic journey with a dystopian kick that evokes the best of Radiohead. Pritchard, a Brit currently based in Australia, spent four years kicking tracks back and forth with Yorke for the album, with the singer manically layering and electronically treating his vocals and adding his own synth parts.
In 2012, Radiohead came to play Sydney, Australia. And at the time, a friend of mine became their second drummer — Clive Deamer, who’d drummed with Roni Size and Portishead and Robert Plant. I’d worked with him years ago and kind of kept in contact with him, and he said, “I can’t tell you at the moment, but something’s happening and I might be coming to Australia.” Obviously it was a secret kind of thing. Everything has to be kept secret with Radiohead.
I started sending him things, one of which became the single “Beautiful People” from my “Under the Sun” album. He tried three or four things, he was really busy at the time. When I heard “Beautiful People,” I said, “Look, this is amazing, let’s just finish that one and put it on the album.” And then kept in contact from there on in really, via e-mail. Just every now and again, we’d have a little catch-up.
Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard reveal “Tall Tales” – their debut collaborative album, a decade in the making.
Landscapes of synth-pop, prog, dub, meet 70s synth, Joe Meek, Ivor Cutler, Library, kraut and classic Warp. Transmitted by visual artist and long time MP collaborator Jonathan Zawada.
“Tall Tales” is available Friday 9th May across digital and physical formats, including a limited first edition 2xLP and special edition CD – both including a 36-page booklet designed by Jonathan Zawada.
The Fat Angel Sings 