Musicians can be such floozies; it’s much like a marriage for them, starting off all rosy and cosy, but after a few years of routine, they can start to want to see other musicians. And thus their side project is born.

Radiohead are a band that have certainly slowed down their output in recent years, with their last studio album being 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool. So it’s no wonder that they scuttle off to do other things in the interim period. Front man Thom Yorke has been positively productive, what with fronting Atoms for Peace and The Smile, as well as three solo albums and a couple of soundtracks to his name.

This then is a collaboration with Mark Pritchard, an electronic musician, which is not the first time they’ve colabbed together, as Yorke appeared on Pritchard’s 2016 album Under the Sun.

The pair kick off as they mean to go on, with “A Fake in a Faker’s World”, which is 8:20 long. It is an eerie electronic soundscape, the type that you could imagine a terminator-esque character inhabiting. Yorke’s vocals are a floaty element, just hovering above the prickly electro sounds below. It’s a journey, with bops and beeps, which is intentionally uncomfortable, and yet manages to be audibly pleasing at the same time. You certainly get why Yorke would want to work with Pritchard, in what is a track that is trés Radiohead.

“Ice Shelf” fades seamlessly in from the first, making it an almost unrecognisable transition. Yorke’s vocal eventually waft in, over a wall of sound that almost feels far from being fully formed. There’s a faint organ in the background that attempts to give it some narrative, but it doesn’t feel the need to be pushy, especially as a pulsing beat grows towards the end.

Quietly creeping in next is “Bugging Out Again”, with Yorke’s vocals once again being contorted electronically. It’s another slice of electronica, slow in pace and intent, with an electronic heartbeat running through it.

Next up to take centre stage is “Back in the Game”, as it makes itself heard. A driving beat is there from the off, which Yorke soon accompanies, in what is a dark and brooding melody, that has more than a touch of the Depeche Mode about it.

Another 8 minute track soon follows, with “The White Cliffs”. Yorke’s vocals come in early, with that familiar driving beat and ethereal synthesised backdrop. Then a keyboard, just peppering things lightly. Some deeper vocals appear, with support from more prominent keyboards. You could be in a cockpit of a space craft, with Earth on the horizon, power down, just floating in the stillness of space. “Everything is out of your hands now” repeats the voice, and you can believe it.

“The Spirit” has Yorke’s vocals upfront and clear as a bell, in what is the closest thing that resembles a standard song on the album thus far. It’s also another track that you wouldn’t be surprised to hear on a Radiohead album. There’s some welcome warmth as strings start to soar, giving it some emotional depth, hopeful even.

If you can get a groove electronically then “Gangsters” has it. It features female vocals, in what sounds like an early videogame, like an irritated Pong, that is sadly over all too quick.

Continuing that pace is “This Conversation is Missing Your Voice”, that again, is very Radiohead in its formula. That upbeat tempo is refreshing though, just injecting a little more life into proceedings. If you feel the need for your foot to start tapping, don’t fight it, go with it.

The title track “Tall Tales” is up next, unsettling and eerie as it is. It sounds like the kind of music that you would be confronted with when entering an art installation, that fills an entire room. It pricks your senses, and has no intentions of comforting you.

With a marching band style intro and a seemingly pleasing title, there’s a suspicion that “Happy Days” may well be lighter in tone. It’s not. You can envision a future army, akin to Stormtroopers, strutting into battle to it, as a driving anthem. Do not engage.

The end is in sight with “The Men Who Dance in Stag’s Heads”, which has almost spoken word lyrics, heard over a lighter tone, with soft horns, giving it an almost angelic touch, as if heaven is closer than we all think.

Drawing this electronic production to a close is “Wandering Genie”. Again, taking more of an organic form with horns, and now a flute, perhaps we’ve finally reached our final destination, a heaven-like existence, with all the electronic instruments seemingly turned down to a minimum, with no need for lyrics, as we’re carried to the end, where we are finally lowered gently back down to earth.

Tall Tales is a hybrid album, part conceptual, part soundtrack to a yet-to-be-film sci-fi flick.

It’s a joint venture that brings with it just over 60 minutes of an electronic soundscape that occasionally lurks in the background, reminding you that it is still very much there, with what are often awkward and jarring entries.

It’s also ethereal and ambient, washing over you at times, cleansing with its audible zeros and ones, as it evokes its futuristic narrative.

With the gap widening between Radiohead album releases, it’s no surprise that its members are off doing other projects. Of course, you also have to consider the fact that if they were keen to make music again, then perhaps working together on a Radiohead project wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But maybe, just maybe, the time isn’t right to reunite that particular union.

This collaboration is certainly an interesting stop gap in the interim, that certainly embraces the electronic sounds that Radiohead currently subscribe too, but with more freedom to produce something far from being commercial.

Perhaps it’s a sign of what to expect further down the road, or maybe it’s just a project that brings two like- minded individuals in Pritchard and Yorke together, allowing them to explore that musical space.

The result is certainly a curious one, equally experimental and ambient, that will be content to dress the background of any occasion, whilst still managing to make itself heard once in a while.