It’s more than just an album recorded by two men at the top of their game who are separated by land and sea – although Tall Tales is that too. Made by fabled electronic musician Mark Pritchard and Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, Rolling Stone described it as a “progtronic journey full of freaky soundscapes and really strong songwriting.”
But it goes deeper still. A third collaborator, Perth-based artist Jonathan Zawada, turned Tall Tales into a film full of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel-like imagery, adding to an artful sense of dislocation, displacement and surrealism.
Songs about technology with uncanny videos, such as This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice, hint at a looming dystopia that’s almost upon us. Moreover, large coins – in keeping with the theme of coin-clipping that runs through the record, inspired by Benjamin Myers’ The Gallows Pole – have been produced by Warp Records. They’ve been hidden in secret locations, out there to be found.
A real-life treasure hunt can be interpreted as a way to make tangible a project made largely in isolation with just files, emails and video-calls facilitating its development. It’s also a thumb in the eye to AI – a concern that imbues Tall Tales with a sense of anxiety.
Pritchard, originally from Somerset, is an ambient techno artist/producer who burst out of the 90s underground dance scene and made a name for himself under a number of aliases including Harmonic 313 and Troubleman, as well as in duos Global Communication and Africa Hitech.
He emigrated to Australia 20 years ago, and his music has become broadly less dance-orientated and more hypnagogic since he reverted to making everything under his own name.
You were commissioned to remix Radiohead’s Bloom in 2011, and you met Thom Yorke the following year. How did all that come about?
it was Clive Deamer, the drummer for Portishead who’s worked with Roni Size and various other artists. He told me, “I might be coming to Australia –but I can’t tell you what it is yet.”
He was playing as Radiohead’s second drummer. I guess with Radiohead everything has to be kept very secret, because fans are looking hard for any bits of information. Then Clive said, “Thom would like to meet you.”
They came to one of my gigs with Steve Spacek [of Africa Hitech], then they played two shows here and I got to hang out with them a bit. At dinner, I asked Thom whether he’d be up for doing something at some point, and he said: “Yeah, cool – send me some stuff!”
You first collaborated on Beautiful People from your solo album Under The Sun in 2016. Work on Tall Tales didn’t get going until 2020. How did work pan out between Sydney Oxford?
I didn’t know Thom that well; I’d only met him once, then there were lots of emails. There’s always going to be some difference of opinion in a project; I guess I’ve worked with enough people and he’s worked with enough people to know how to deal with that situation.
He wasn’t comfortable when he got very famous. People lose it and then have to disappear
It became easier when we had a Zoom call. He’s straight-up and I’m straight-up; I guess we trusted each other straight away. If it gets a bit tense, you can chill out with a joke and some self-effacing comments – Thom’s really good at that.
Some people might be surprised to hear that. His public persona is quite intense, wouldn’t you say?
If you’ve listened to his music and seen his imagery, you could come to the conclusion that he’s a very serious character. But most of our emails are in a West Country dialect: “Wasson there, bey?” “Alroight, moi luvver?” He’s got a house in Cornwall and he’s spent a lot of time in the West Country. We’re mainly having a laugh when we’re discussing things. It’s very easy going.
I can see why people assume he’s intense. There were interviews where he wasn’t comfortable during that period when he got very famous. People lose it and then they have to disappear; so he disappeared to Cornwall and painted for a year to get himself back to a state where he wanted to work again.
Another surprise is Yorke’s baritone on tracks like The Men Who Dance In Stag’s Heads.
I hired a studio off Martin Barre from Jethro Tull once. I checked out all of their albums. Very time-changey!
Yeah, I was really surprised too! I’ve heard him sing low, but not for a whole song. He said he’d always wanted to do it but had never really found a way. He used a kind of varispeeding that helped him get into character, and I think it allowed him to feel more confident. There was other manipulation of his voice through modular systems and various pedals.
He was trying to find tonally how to fit in as well, having fun with his voice and doing different things. There’s a Black Sabbath song called Planet Caravan – a very peaceful, mellow, psychedelic song – and I’ve always wanted to put stuff through a real Leslie speaker, like they did. I’d been waiting for the right song, so we tried to see if we could do something like that.
You obviously love classic rock. Are you a prog fan too?
I was into King Crimson quite early on. I’m not sure how I came across them but it was the early 90s when I was digging for samples. Then I discovered Gentle Giant, who I really like! There was a period where I was listening to them more than anything else. I went through their catalogue and discovered these incredible albums.
I hired a studio off Martin Barre from Jethro Tull once. I checked out all of their albums too. Very time-changey music! I’ve continued to dip into lots of different styles – I’ll check out some prog, then some folk, then I’ll flip through music from Peru, Egypt and so on. That’s what I’ve always done.
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