Tall Tales has been a long time in the making. Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard’s long-running collaborations are given their biggest outing to date on this collaborative album, made up of songs Yorke wrote lyrics for over the COVID-19 lockdown. Five years on, and the tones of isolation feel like an ugly footnote, the chance for pertinent comment relying more on the personal experiences of being stuck indoors than the contemporary push. It is a minefield of few opportunities; music made during lockdown. From the slop of artificial intelligence, no matter the context, to the adaptation of machines, the lack of heart and pursuit of space-age sound, the ghostly interjection of a disconnected voice. Tall Tales could very well be a commentary on our disconnect from one another, the lack of intimacy had during a time of enforced lockdown. But it misses the mark.
Opener A Fake in a Faker’s World hopes to establish the difference between man-made creation and artificially generated pieces. It fails to divide the two, even with the help of a music video where unofficial third collaborator Zawada inputs the images they would like to see, coding it with a level of care which could just as well be applied to canvas. That is the question Tall Tales shies away from. Is it art to code it into place? Yorke and Pritchard have a fascinating discussion on their hands, but as was the case for The Smile, shying away from contemporary commentary is the route. What Tall Tales tries to paint is a vivid and doomed soundscape. It feels personal but has no personable quality. These are interesting experiences; the solo works of Yorke, particularly his soundtracks, always have been. Pritchard adds an intensity thanks to his ear for electronic instrumentation, but even with their best efforts at hand, parts of Tall Tales feel hollow.
Moments of interest are what Tall Tales offers best, but even then, they are few and far between. Bugging Out Again and Back in the Game both feel like experiments where one instrument takes lead. Neither result in anything too amazing, but Tall Tales is all about the stripped-back sound, the feeling of misery and fear is conjured well. An occasional punch of beauty is enough to keep Tall Tales ticking over. The White Cliffs is a tremendous example of Pritchard as an instrumental power, and Yorke as a vocalist with tremendous longevity. Lush soundscapes, paired with doubt from a second voice over the message observed by the first. It would help if the first had said anything of influence. There is a passiveness to Tall Tales, not an urgent note in its creation but a series of experiments interesting to the ear of its maker.
That is not to say the album is without consequence. Teary-eyed attempts like The Spirit are wonderful overlaps of instrumental defiance and lyrical clarity, with Yorke sounding quite unlike anything he has released in recent years. Where there could be pertinent points from Yorke’s writing, they are limited and reduced in their impact by the instrumental focus. Loud and brash, inventive too, Tall Tales is more a Pritchard project with Yorke dragged along, than an active balance. As it should be. This is, after all, a return for Pritchard after five years of experimenting with his sound in the quiet afforded by a shutdown of life’s expectations. The march begins in earnest, and ends with, Happy Days. It is the latter moments of Tall Tales which will define it, the unnerving instrumental, the whispered horrors, these are the tones worth hearing. A shame there is little of it which is this effective.
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