Television Personalities - My Dark Place

Domino
Released: 03.21.06

Does knowledge of who an artist is affect the way we hear the music? I'd say there are three categories to the answer. Robert Johnson would still be the first recorded bluesman to play with a powerful, driving rhythm even if no one knew the myth of his deal with the devil. His life simply adds to his legacy. Syd Barrett's music begs the listener to ask the question, "What turmoil was going on in this guy's head?" The music and the artist are so wholly intertwined that the question becomes irrelevant. Then there's something like Eric Clapton. Songs like 'Layla' and 'Tears in Heaven' are always accompanied by "It's about George Harrison's wife," or "It's about his son dying." The stories serve no real purpose, but they're always there.

The Television Personalities leader, Dan Treacy, has a story unlike anyone else. But let's see how the music holds up on its own. Unless, of course, it falls into that second category.

Uncompromising in every way, My Dark Places is quintessentially British. It is unashamedly moody to the point of sounding like a desperate cry for help at times, but then quickly moving into playful, childish odes to boyhood heroes. It is musically dissonant with little sense of release from the cacophony. Treacy does no favors for anyone.

Without question, the highlight of the record is 'Velvet Underground.' This song couldn't sound any more unlike its subject. An up-tempo vaudevillian piano melody drives the song, with fake horns adding color sporadically, sometimes borrowing the melody of 'Here Comes the Bride' for no apparent reason. "The eighth mystery of the world I've found, How did the Velvet Underground get that sound," repeats, like everything in the song, sporadically, along with, "Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone but Lou Reed." The verses are just Treacy rambling about "how did they get it? I thought we had it." Like I said, this is the highlight of the record.

In the past 35 years, Treacy and company have made some of the most inspired music on record. At times - particularly 1984’s The Painted Word - Treacy has fallen into that second category with powerful results. My Dark Places teeters on that brink, but there is a self-consciousness that has never interfered with a TVPs records before this one. Treacy’s story is worth investigating for anyone who’s asked the question posed at the start of the review.

- Dave Wolkensperg