Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke announce their debut album ‘Tall Tales’
The announcement comes with the release of a new single, offering a glimpse into the duo’s innovative alchemy of sound.
Photo: Pierre Toussaint
The legendary electronic musician and producer Mark Pritchard and The Smile and Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke are set to release their debut album, Tall Tales, on May 9th via Warp Records. After first collaborating on Pritchard’s 2016 solo album Under the Sun, the duo’s two new singles — Back in the Game and This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice — hint at a deep dive into experimental electronics, haunting synthscapes, and evocative storytelling.
With Tall Tales, Pritchard — renowned for his work in Reload, Link, and Global Communication — brings his expertise in vintage synthesisers and genre-blurring sound design to create unpredictable and otherworldly soundscapes. Yorke’s haunting storytelling weaves through these experimental compositions, creating an alchemy that balances intimacy and vulnerability with a mechanical, otherworldly edge.
Their latest single, This Conversation is Missing Your Voice, encapsulates just this. Relentless, flickering machines propel the listener upward, as if ascending a conveyor belt to the heavens, while layers of bubbling, humming synths build an eerie tension. Yorke’s lyrics explore self-worth and the act of stepping away from toxicity, delivered with his signature aching restraint. From the glitched-out rhythms and weightless ambient passages of the latest releases, the album is poised to push sonic boundaries, capturing a dreamlike space where melancholia meets innovation.
This ascent is echoed visually in the track’s accompanying video, crafted by Jonathan Zawada, whom Pritchard and Yorke consider the group’s third member. A renowned visual artist known for his hyperreal fusion of digital and organic forms, Zawada builds immersive landscapes that blur the line between technology and human experience. The video for This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice expands on the song’s ethereal journey, visually mirroring its mechanical rise toward something celestial yet unknowable. The two released music videos form part of a feature film Zawada has been developing alongside the album, extending its narrative into a cinematic realm. To coincide with the album’s release, a special one-night-only screening of the film will take place in select cinemas worldwide, with further details to follow.
If the early releases are any indication, Tall Tales will be a mesmerising addition to both artists’ storied careers — one that shimmers with the wonder and unease of innovation.
Tall Tales is out via Warp on May 9th.