An acclaimed rock singer has another side project, and it’s “scary good.”
Radiohead’s Thom Yorke released “Tall Tales,” a new experimental electronic album with Mark Pritchard, on Friday. The 12-track treasure from longtime techno label Warp Records features singles “Back in the Game,” “This Conversation is Missing Your Voice” and the 8-bit “Gangsters.”
According to Rolling Stone, Yorke and Pritchard previously collaborated on a remix of Radiohead’s “Bloom” from 2011’s “King of Limbs” for the “KOL RMX 1234567″ album. The pair has been working on the new project since 2020, sharing music as Yorke adds “vocals that are hauntingly opaque and ensnaringly eerie even by his high standards.”
The magazine calls the album “scary good,” praising Pritchard for keeping the tracks “uncluttered and varied” while giving Yorke’s voice plenty of space. Highlights include tributes to Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground, the minimalist “The White Cliffs,” and the John Carpenter-esque “Bugging Out Again.”
“Tall Tales” comes with a film by visual artist Jonathan Zawada, featuring chaotic and varied music videos for each track.
“For me, it was really just a reflection of the music,” Zawada told Billboard. “The music was so varied sonically that it never felt like it could possibly be right to narrow it down into any particular aesthetic style. It contributes to that feeling of disorientation and complexity.”
The album comes two months after Radiohead sparked rumors of their first reunion tour in 7 years. Yorke and bandmates Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Philip Selway, and Ed O’Brien established a limited liability partnership under the name RHEUK25 LLP, suggesting they’ll play European and UK concerts later this year. The group did similar LLPs before announcing new tour dates or releasing music.
But besides his new collaboration with Pritchard, Yorke has also kept busy with Greenwood in another side project called The Smile. Meanwhile, Radiohead’s “Hail to the Thief” album has been incorporated with Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” for a new theatrical staging, “Hamlet to the Thief,” with Yorke’s blessing.
Radiohead, which last toured in 2018, is a Grammy-winning art rock band known for is experimental, alternative sound on songs like “Creep,” “Fake Plastic Trees,” “Karma Police,” “Paranoid Android,” and “The National Anthem.” The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019 and five of their albums have been named among Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
