Television Tan

Young Team write songs for people who have attended a mandatory meeting and emerged with less information.

From the beginning, the band’s weapons have been dry spoken vocals, clipped funk bass, angular guitar and brass arriving with the confidence of a man who has misunderstood the dress code. Their music is lean, clever and strangely danceable, provided your dancing resembles waiting to cross a dual carriageway.

Television Tan turns its attention to modern comfort: screens, schedules, vague ambition and the slow replacement of a personality by recommended content. The title track watches a nation absorbing artificial daylight from the sofa, wearing the healthy glow of somebody who has completed six consecutive episodes and one family-sized packet of crisps.

The singer delivers each observation with complete emotional neutrality, as though reading the findings of an inquiry nobody intends to publish. Behind him, the band stays tightly wound. Bass and drums lock into economical grooves; guitars jab rather than strum; occasional trumpet blasts appear to certify that events have become official.

“Good for the Goose” examines double standards with the weary precision of somebody copying management into the email. “Ahead of Schedule” is an anthem for finishing early and discovering that competence is rewarded with additional work. Both are funny until the exact moment they become autobiographical.

The great achievement of Television Tan is that it never strains for weirdness. Young Team simply describe ordinary life accurately enough for it to become surreal. Offices, adverts and living rooms emerge as small administrative traps with excellent basslines.

MERINGUE! asked the band what audiences should take from the album.

They supplied a laminated action plan and asked us to sign the bottom.

Richard signed Sandra’s name.