Television Personalities
A Memory Is Better Than Nothing

Good news from the planet Treacy. The "illegitimate son" of Syd Barrett, having reached his tenth studio album, strongly draws a clear boundary line with the ghosts and anxieties of previous works. On one hand, "My Dark Places" (Domino, 2006), a carousel with inconclusive and masochistic hints; on the other, "Are We Nearly There Yet?" (Overground Records, 2007), MIDI memories of prison days.

The first and substantial novelty is the return to a decent instrumental arrangement (finally, poor Dan must have realized that the keyboard on its own was unbearable even for the most die-hard fans) and less self-referential writing (at least we are far from the club of his exes from an unfortunate track of "My Dark Places"). The title track, a light tapestry of guitars and xylophone with shadowy outlines, is the declared manifesto of the entire album. Stopping the blind flow of Time - of Nothing - only with the weak yet more than ever salvific grip of memory (the choice for the artwork of the childhood game box as the visual counterpart of that recovery is excellent). Thus, Treacy unravels his skein in fragile ballads like "Walk Towards The Light" or in songs like "She's My Yoko," whose enshrined chorus sounds like one of the most valid anthems of the latest TvP. The whispered falsetto of "Funny He Never Married," on what could be a measured melody from Galaxie 500, heralds the Barrett-like atmospheres of "Except For Jennifer." At the turning point, we are still at a good level of homogeneity. "People Think That We're Stranged," supported by a drum machine and the slender backing vox of Johanna Lundstrom (who, to be fair, performs well in every episode of the album), brings us back to mediocre levels. If that weren't enough, the post-punk of "My New Tattoo" adds to it, with its sterile trail of abrupt distortions, for a modest duration of five minutes. Perhaps the most unfortunate moment of the entire album. From here to the end, the slower tones prevail. The subdued mood of "Come Back To Bed," an intimate plea of a little organ imprinted with the artist's London voices; "The Good Anarchist," a mellifluous composition by Lundstrom dated 2008, proposed here in duo with Treacy; ends quietly with the clarity of "All The Things You Are," and "You Freed My Spirit," a sedative tune, organ, and harmonica, with which to bid farewell after barely fifty minutes of music.

Perhaps encouraged by the tributes he is receiving, foremost among them the song by the acclaimed MGMT, Dan Treacy might be feeling the need not to live only off his past? Good question. Certainly, it seems like the most unlikely of hopes, given the proverbial instability of the character, who never hesitates, from time to time, to announce his retirement from the scene. Especially in a scene like the current indie pop one where the contribution of TvP can only be reduced to a lesson, that naïve and revivalist aesthetic, which seems to have been learned well for some time now.

Nevertheless, "A Memory Is Better Than Nothing" shows small signs of recovery here and there. As good devotees - as we are - we can only hope. Better than nothing, right?