TV Priest - My Other People (Pink-Smoke Loser Edition LP)

TV Priest will release My Other People, the group’s follow-up to Uppers, their acclaimed debut, worldwide on June 17th. The album features the highlights “One Easy Thing” and new single, “Bury Me In My Shoes,” which you can hear now. My Other People was produced by band member/multi-instrumentalist Nic Bueth at Studio East in London.

Frontman Charlie Drinkwater says of the album, “My Other People is a more “open” set of songs, both musically and in our themes; in the process of writing we found ourselves talking about things other than anger or aggression. We wanted to discuss love, loss, and joy too. It’s a record about personal disintegration and destruction but also rebuilding again after this. It’s also heavily rooted in place, the music being a very direct response to Britain and England in 2021, but in a more abstract and textural sense. A muddy field viewed from a train window between cities, a patch of wildflowers growing next to a motorway, sticky carpets in a suburban flat roof pub, pissing rain on an August bank holiday, and the smell of diesel in an out of town supermarket car park. An angry, hopeful, shitty, beautiful island.”

As for My Other People’s new single, he adds, “‘Bury Me In My Shoes' is a hangover of a song. Last year was about reminding ourselves to hang on to good things; to remember you can love and hate in equal measure. That the answers are rarely found by looking backwards. “Bury Me” was written as a response to that general feeling of unease and creeping dread. A feeling you get from bad news on no breakfast.”

Without a brutal evaluation of their own becoming, TV Priest might have
never made their second album. Heralded as the next big thing in post-punk,
they were established as a bolshy, sharp-witted outfit, the kind that starts
movements with their political ire. There was of course truth in that, but it was
a suit that quickly felt heavy on its wearer’s shoulders, leaving little room for
true vulnerability. “A lot of it did feel like I was being really careful and a bit at
arm's length,” says vocalist Charlie Drinkwater. “I think maybe I was not fully
aware of the role I was taking. I had to take a step back and realize that what
we were presenting was quite far away from the opinion of myself that I had.
Now, I just want to be honest.”

Having made music together since their teenage years, the London
four-piece piqued press attention in late 2019 with their first gig as a newly
solidified group, a raucous outing in the warehouse district of Hackney Wick.
Debut single “House of York” followed with a blistering critique of monarchist
patriotism, and they were signed to Sub Pop for their debut album. When
Uppers arrived in the height of a global pandemic, it reaped praise from
critics and fans alike for its “dystopian doublespeak,” but the band —
Drinkwater, guitarist Alex Sprogis, producer, bass and keys player Nic Bueth
and drummer Ed Kelland – were at home like the rest of us, drinking cups of
tea and marking time via government-sanctioned daily exercise. As such, the
personal and professional landmark of its release felt “both colossal and
minuscule” dampened by the inability to share it live. “It was a real
gratification and really cathartic, but on the other hand, it was really strange,
and not great for my mental health” admits Drinkwater. “I wasn’t prepared,
and I hadn't necessarily expected it to reach as many people as it did.”

As such, My Other People maintains a strong sense of earth-rooted emotion,
taking advantage of the opportunity to physically connect. Using “Saintless”
(the closing song from Uppers) as something of a starting point, Drinkwater
set about crafting lyrics that allowed him to articulate a deeper sense of
personal truth, using music as a vessel to communicate with his bandmates
about his depleting mental health. “Speaking very candidly, it was written at
a time and a place where I was not, I would say, particularly well,” he says.
“There was a lot of things that had happened to myself and my family that
were quite troubling moments.Despite that I do think the record has our most
hopeful moments too; a lot of me trying to set myself reminders for living, just
everyday sentiments to try and get myself out of the space I was in.”

“It was a bit of a moment for all of us where we realised that we can make
something that, to us at least, feels truly beautiful,” agrees Bueth. “Brutality
and frustration are only a part of that puzzle, and despite a lot of us feeling
quite disconnected at the time, overwhelmingly beautiful things were also
still happening.”

This tension between existential fear born from the constant uncertainties of
life, and an armative, cathartic urge to seize the moment, is central to My
Other People, a record that heals by providing space for recognition, a ground
zero in which you’re welcome to stay awhile but which ultimately only leads
up and out. For TV Priest, it is a follow-up that feels truly, properly them; free
of bravado, unnecessary bluster or any audience pressure to commit solely to
their original sound.

TRACKLISTING:
1. One Easy Thing
2. Bury Me In My Shoes
3. Limehouse Cut
4. I Have Learnt Nothing
5. It Was Beautiful
6. The Happiest Place On Earth
7. My Other People
8. The Breakers
9. Unravelling
10. It Was A Gift
11. I Am Safe Here
12. Sunland