The first part of “The Lord of Lightning vs Balrog” to feature Leah Senior narration, “The Reticent Raconteur” is a slow, plodding transitional track that introduces the story as witnessed by the narrator. Stu explained the Reticent Raconteur’s story in an interview for Observer. “…The second story is a sort of battle, it follows a group of people who’ve also been stalked, chased, attacked by a Lord of Lightning, who then subsequently…this is gonna sound so ridiculous… He subsequently captures one member of the party, who turns him into a Balrog. The Balrog is kind of pissed off, and a battle ensues with the Lord of Lightning. The party manages to escape and the Lord of Lightning is sort of victorious.” White the song was not written as its own track on the band’s studio whiteboard, it was released as part of Murder of the Universe on June 23rd, 2017.
“The Reticent Raconteur” is included in Jason Galea and Ben Jones’ music video for “The Lord of Lightning vs Balrog” released on May 30th, 2017. It intersperses shots of Leah Senior walking through a forest wearing a brown cloak with footage of a creek. At the end of the track, she comes across Stu’s 12-string Hagstrom F12S under a bunch of leaves. Leah’s portrayal of the Raconteur would be referenced on the poster for 2019-07-05.
While a variation of the idea was played during performances of “The Lord of Lightning,” the song made its actual live debut on 2021-02-23 during an encore for the band’s fully microtonal shows at the Croxton Park Hotel in Naarm (Melbourne). Here the song was played alongside narration from Leah Senior, who would do the same thing the following night. After a long break it would return on 2022-10-02 once again with Leah Senior. Throughout the 2022 US tour the song was played a handful of times in this format, though afterwards it would become an instrumental track with fewer appearances.