Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke Tall Tales 2LP

Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke are set to release their debut album as a duo via Warp Records. Tall Tales showcases Pritchard's mastery of archaic machines unearthed in synthesizer archives, guiding the music down unexpected and experimental paths. Yorke meanwhile delivers a haunting and expansive vocal performance, evoking Radiohead's OK Computer-era digital FX while delving into dark, introspective storytelling. Visual collaborator Jonathan Zawada's artistry enhances the project with his hyperreal environments that juxtapose uneasy landscapes of natural beauty with the brutal aesthetics of a dystopian world.

Despite its piecemeal half-decade gestation, Tall Tales is a coherent, if often cryptic joint effort....Combined with taut drum programming, much of the material evokes everything from Kraftwerk and Cluster to Martin Hannett, Chris & Cosey, and Andy Stott. Eerie drones, misshapen voices, and other atmospheric elements abound, as do well-placed accoutrements such as woodwinds and idiophones. Still, the machine rhythms reign supreme, pulsating, oscillating, and probing...