Dan Treacy, also known as Nicholas Parsons, leader of The Television Personalities, is perhaps the greatest living example of an outsider artist in the music world. He disappeared eight years ago, and was presumed dead by many of his fans (although not by the police who'd put him in prison off the Dorset coast). He has returned to record this collection of songs that he wrote while incarcerated.

Rather like Homer's barbecue/sculpture mishap, the difficulty with outsider art is telling whether it's actually any good, or just the ramblings of someone disconnected from society. This is where assessing the cultural contribution of Treacy, or wannabe Treacys such as Pete Doherty, gets a bit tricky. Do we like them because they're a bit mad or because they have a genuine talent for expressing the hopes and fears of their generation? The jury may still be out on Doherty, but Treacy does at least seem intent on being honest and direct, rather than (ironically) a television personality.

Sometimes this honesty can be unpleasant, if not unlistenable. The single All The Young Children On Crack would be a depressing thought if it were true, and against a fragmented, improvised backing track it feels as if Treacy really believes what he is saying. For the listener, the snatches of acoustic guitar are a blessed relief from the relentless, monotonic drum beat and disturbing faux-infant backing vocal.

The other slightly perturbing factor is the deliberate leaving in of bad performances. This is what makes "My Dark Places" so striking. Who would ever think of putting out a record nowadays where the band can clearly not keep time (aside, that is, from The White Stripes)? This makes the record grab the attention, and means you have to listen to, rather than simply hear, it.

And listening certainly has its rewards. The gentle piano ballads I'm Not Your Typical Boy and Tell Me About It wear their badly played hearts on their sleeves to great effect. Equally, there is a ring of joy around the carnivalesque They'll Have To Catch Us First which is captivating.

So is the out-of-tune singing, bad playing and making-it-up-as-he-goes along lyrical style art? Pop art, maybe. Television Personalities fans will be overjoyed with this collection of new songs. Newcomers will wonder how music like this ever got recorded, but bored of Mike Skinner, might rejoice in its working-class accented good humour and honesty. Others may find its affected, one-take-and-that'll-do-yer attitude too punk for their ears. Me? I think it's possibly one of the most exciting records of 2006.

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Mercury Prize 2009 nominees