The Television Personalities: My Dark Places Remixes

Dan Treacy and his Television Personalities made a welcome comeback in 2006 with My Dark Places, but how many people, really, have been waiting with bated breath for My Dark Places, the Remixes? There’s nothing about Treacy’s interior, challenging, melodic indie-pop songs that screams “remix” to me, yet here’s an EP of exactly that. Don’t think of the original songs with beats underneath them, though, because thankfully this is more a case of turning over complete control to inventive electronic-music artists to see what they can do. And what the four artists (E*Vax of Ratatat, I Will of Battles, Lingling, and Black Dice) do is mostly intriguing, full of style and color, though Treacy’s songs nearly disappear in the mix. Even though I never had a desire to hear Treacy’s songs in such a setting, the best remix here is actually the one that’s least destructive, the one where the song is shaded more than set aside. That’s E*Vax’s gorgeous take on “You Kept Me Waiting Too Long…”, which alone makes this whole endeavor worthwhile.