Pitchfork

Post-punk has bred few sons more enigmatic, charismatic and straight-up erratic than Mr. Dan Treacy, frontman for the Television Personalities. And even fewer more endearing. When Treacy miraculously resurfaced last year after serving jail time on a British prison boat (allegedly for burglary), TVP acolytes the world over rejoiced, and when Treacy went on to declare he'd "written [his] best and most meaningful music of the last couple years" and wanted to release a new record, those acolytes wet themselves with glee. Championed by Kurt Cobain, John Peel, Jens Lekman, and Creation Records founder Alan McGee among others, the Television Personalities exert a lifetime hold over those whose lives they touch. And that jolly lot is about to grow with exponential furor.

Domino Records recently announced that they will release the fruit of Treacy's foreshadowing, entitled My Dark Places, on February 27 in the UK and March 7 in North America. It will be the first record of new Television Personalities material in eleven long years. Fixin' for a taster? Domino drops the first single on February 6, the oh-so-cheekily-entitled "All The Young Children On Smack, All The Young Children On Crack". Featuring a cover of the Who's "All Love Is Good Love" on the b-side, the song was inspired in part by Pete Doherty. We jest not.

And don't the kids still love it:

01 Special Chair
02 All the Young Children on Smack, All the Young Children on Crack
03 Sick Again
04 Ex Girlfriend Club
05 You Dream the Sweetest Dreams
06 Velvet Underground
07 My Dark Places
08 I'm Not Your Typical Boy
09 You Kept Me Waiting Too Long
10 They'll Have to Catch Up First
11 She Can Stop Traffic
12 Tell Me About
13 Knock It All Down
14 I Hope You're Happy Now
15 No More I Hate You's
16 There's No Beautiful Way to Say Goodbye

My Dark Places was recorded with Simon Trought at London's Soup Studio. A press release proclaims the record is "as sad as it is uplifting, as gentile as it is noisy", and says that Treacy penned the entire album while serving his prison boat sentence. We could invoke any number of prison-related jokes here, but we're on a sincerity kick of late. Must be the season.

Dan Treacy's blog, which totters rather amusingly between precocious brilliance and unnerving hysteria, features allusions to a U.S. tour in 2006. Until those glorious dates arrive, UK denizens may shake their bums to Treacy's selections at this Friday's "How Does It Feel To Be Loved?" event at London's Phoenix, where Dan will work the decks:

12-16 London, England - The Phoenix (DJ Set)