MARK PRITCHARD 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: In more recent years, Mark Pritchard has moved further away from dubstep, and much closer to the smorgasbord of sounds and influences that is often referred to as 'electronica'. We don't mind the term because it gives us more room to interpret the music without any predefinitions, but "Beautiful People" is much more than that. Coming out courtesy of the mighty Warp, the tune is propelled forwards by Radiohead's Thom Yorke, where the legend's voice is perfectly infused with Pritchard's gentle Eastern chimes and tranquil beats. The whole track is a gentle walk into a far yet alluring sonic landscape, and this could well turn into a future classic. We already see it as a perfect accompaniment to a film, and if you're in the mood to totally zone out then you always have the instrumental cut to steer you further out into outer space.

Review: Since Radiohead went on hiatus a few years back, Thom Yorke has thrown himself into all sorts of solo and collaborative projects. His latest sees him join forces with Sydney-based British electronic music stalwart Mark Pritchard for an album that expands on their previous collaboration (the superb 'Beautiful People' from Pritchard's 2018 album Under The Sun). It's a breathtakingly brilliant concoction all told, with the pair conjuring ethereal, oddball and immersive songs in which Yorke's distinctive vocals - sometimes delivered as you'd expect, other times layered-up, mutilated or utilised as textures - rise above backing tracks made with unusual synths and drum machines, and variously indebted to ambient, IDM, ghostly electronica, lo-fi beat-scapes and the gripping intensity of horror soundtracks. A modern electronic classic in the making.

Review: Begun in earnest during the COVID-19 pandemic, after the former had remixed the latter's new Radiohead material, Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke exchanged much of the for their new record Tall Tales remotely. Forerun by new single 'Back In The Game' then 'This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice', the album takes shape as a surreal mythopoesis, warping back in time to 2020's plague, where the former track's hyperreal music video (dir. by Jonathan Zawada) sees a rooftop figure defenestrating art itself amid grotesque figures bearing the worst of a mutant contortionist slice-of-life. Yorke has said that the album was crucial to him, describing the music-making process as "mental."

Review: Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard revive the collaboration first aired on the latter's 2016 album Unde The Sun, this time across a full album reportedly four years in the (top secret) making. It's a compelling synthesis of Yorke's atmospheric melancholy and Pritchard's textured production. It expores a range of moods, from the uneasy tension of 'A Fake In A Faker's World' to the hypnotic rhythms of 'Back In The Game', while the eerie, spectral qualities of 'This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice' reveal the pair's ability to intertwine experimental soundscapes with a visceral emotional pull. Standout moments include 'Gangsters,' where Pritchard's intricately layered beats mesh with Yorke's haunting vocal delivery, and 'Wandering Genie,' which closes the journey with a strange sense of release. The music takes unexpected turns, not just as a statement of collaboration, but as a reflection of two artists playing with the unknown, pulling their sonic worlds into unexplored spaces. Each track is a feather in the cap of their combined ingenuity, with Yorke's vocal vulnerability and Pritchard's production wizardry in full synergy.