#tennismusic

[carlisle980]

Current feels: "Needle and a Knife" and apple crumble. Homemade. With whipped cream. Also homemade. And coffee. Elemental. #ejbbakes #inthekitchen #applecrumble #tennismusic #needleandaknife #☕️☕️☕️

[soundazed]

TENNIS at 9:30 Club (03/19/17) // http://bit.ly/szd-tennis

[ndconditioner]

So Tennis has announced that this is their final album and so I am announcing that this is my final breath.

[lovejustforaday]

2020 Year-end list - #1

SWIMMER - TENNIS

Main Genres: Indie Pop, Soft Rock A decent sampling of: Pop Soul, Psychedelic Pop, Twee Pop, Dream Pop, Art Pop

I’ve been a casual fan of Tennis for a while now since their last LP Yours Conditionally dropped in 2017. The band has an established niche, making music that fuses twee pop sensibilities with the retro sounds of so-called ‘dated’ genres like soft rock, surf, and 70s pop soul. Someone who spends less time with their music might shrug them off as just another cute little indie band obsessed with the times long past, and I’ll admit myself that this wasn’t on my AOTY radar when it was first announced. But then they dropped the lead single “Runner” at the end of last year and I had the faintest feeling that this was gonna be a big moment for them, and it turned out that my intuition was right this time.

Swimmer is a gorgeous and delicate musical experience about a love that survives to the end of the world, an ornately decorated wedding cake laced with celestial hallucinogens. While I’m at it, here’s a quick hot take that’s sure to get me murdered by some boomers: this album is better than Rumours by Fleetwood Mac and pretty much all of ABBA’s greatest hits (both artists that I am also fond of). Tennis has been refining their craft and their sound for a decade now, and if past releases in their discography represent footsteps in the band’s evolution, then Swimmer is closer to a parsec of evolution.

The band consists of Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley, a quirky couple who celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary this year, which is essential context because Swimmer is largely a testament to Moore and Riley’s beautiful relationship and a mature reflection on what it means to spend that much time with someone and know them that closely. When I say the two are quirky, I mean that in the best way possible – Moore and Riley seem to be a genuine two of a kind, a pair of unabashed, offbeat love birds who would gladly leave their regular lives behind to spend months living on a sailboat together with only a few possessions (they did this twice, in fact).  I mean, they even dropped this LP on Valentine’s Day. They’re so genuinely nerdy with their love for each other; I want to say that this LP wouldn’t work nearly as well if it was anyone else’s relationship.

Regardless, the music of Swimmer still speaks for itself. Everything is a huge improvement of their last LP, with better production, incredibly infectious hooks, more ambitious songwriting, and a surprising amount of lyrical depth. Still largely maintaining the band’s guitar-driven, twee 70s pop fusion formula, this time they add little traces of sparkly psychedelia that are just enough to leave you feeling love struck. Riley’s guitar work is a big highlight, gliding around melodies and leaving little musical bits of fancy frosted sugar coating everywhere without ever coming off as flashy. The album has a retro sound, but it also has a distinctly modern quality with its honest reflection on darker subject matter and characteristically millennial elements of irony and subversion.

“I’ll Haunt You” begins the album with a gentle, wistful ballad examining the unlikely topic of mortality, as Moore reflects on her own signs of aging before proclaiming “I will haunt you when I’m gone” to her lover Riley. The saccharine twee pop veneer of Moore’s golden voice is so thick that it’s easy to miss the lyrical depth of many of these songs, betrayed only by the conviction of her words.  The mood picks up fast with “Need Your Love”, a lively soft rock composition with prog influences, featuring a major tempo shift between its verses and chorus that is ridiculously gratifying to hear each time it switches.

“Runner” is absurdly catchy, both a brilliant pop song and a shimmering sea of little stars that goes higher and higher as Alaina Moore reflects on her very religious upbringing and how it has influenced her perception of human desire. Apparently this track took Moore and Riley a full year of almost non-stop songwriting and editing to get the end result they wanted, and the care and work that was put into it really shows. Title track “Swimmer” is the only song where the darker undertones are fully reflected in the instrumental composition, with a gloomy psychedelic rock dirge about Moore’s fear of swimming and the time she and her husband went to release his late father’s cremated ashes into the sea. In this context, the water itself represents death.

The album reaches an epic climax with its finest song and penultimate track “Late Night”, a warm twee pop serenade that begins soothing the listener with its twinkling refrain, all while Moore philosophically ponders the topics of love, religion, sex, womanhood, and identity. The track eventually bursts into a whirlwind of ecstasy as she triumphantly declares “I am the master of my ship / My ship, the master of the sea” and “I think I'm finally feeling free”, conquering her fear of the water and likewise her fear of death, while asserting her freedom to live as she chooses. This was my other favourite song of the year besides Jessie Ware’s “Spotlight” – “Late Night” fills my heart with joy whenever I hear it and it makes me want to spin in endless circles of euphoria.

Finally, the album closes with “Matrimony II”, a soulful baroque pop song that celebrates the idea of love as a gravitational orbit between two celestial bodies as they pull closer and closer until they are mutually destroyed, beautifully mirroring the opening track’s reflection on the relationship between love and death. This song in particular was written by Moore in dedication to Riley to commemorate the anniversary of their wedding, and I think it’s the perfect choice for a closing track because it really ends the album with such an elegant thought.

In short, Swimmer by Tennis is a collection of indie pop songs that’s not that far from perfect. It’s so funny, this was only the second album from this year that I listened to and it ended up crushing everything else in its path.

It’s almost a miracle that during such a dreary year we were given an album that is so celebratory, so life-affirming, and so unafraid of what the future may hold. Truthfully, Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley have given me more than just faith in the future of the music industry; they have given me faith in the future of humanity with their good vibes and their determination to live as their own true authentic selves. So here’s to Tennis and 2020, here’s to the radical past, and here’s to a better future.

Edit: Bumping this down to a 9. Still the most exciting thing I heard in 2020, but in hindsight I think it flows a bit awkwardly at times (particularly the intro “I’ll Haunt You” which feels like it was cut short) and I don’t think this is quite up there with my other 10s. 2020 was kind of a slow year in music for me (crappy year in general obviously) so I wanted a clear decisive AOTY masterpiece. Looks like I didn’t get one this time, but I’ll be checking out some of the stuff I missed.

I still stand by this being better than most of the 70s soft rock it pays homage to, and indeed better than any other act right now that has been putting out similar 70s “kitsch” revivalism.

9/10

highlights: “Late Night”, “Runner”, "Matrimony II”, “Need Your Love”,  “Swimmer”, “How To Forgive”

[jessmoonbelle]

𝒪𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑒𝒹𝑔𝑒 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓉𝒽

𝒪𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒸𝓇𝑒𝓈𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝒶 𝓌𝒶𝓋𝑒

𝐻𝑜𝓌 𝓁𝑜𝓃𝑔 𝒸𝒶𝓃 𝓌𝑒 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓎 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈?

𝐿𝑒𝒶𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒾𝓃 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝓂𝑜𝓇𝑒 𝓀𝒾𝓈𝓈

𝐼'𝓂 𝒽𝑜𝓁𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓈𝑜 𝓁𝑜𝓃𝑔

𝐼 𝓌𝒾𝓁𝓁 𝒽𝒶𝓊𝓃𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝐼'𝓂 𝑔𝑜𝓃𝑒 💕

[jagoldtop]

Afternoon college radio! With some serious girl Afros #bettydavis #tennismusic #kcsbfm (at KCSB-FM 91.9 in Santa Barbara)

[pastaxcx]

Those who measure time and distance haven’t known a love like mine. @tennisinc #tennismusic (at The Fillmore)

[therevue]

Nine more songs occupy The Matinee. Start the weekend with new music from Mogwai, Dog In The Snow, WHARVES, Baula, Pink Milk, Tennis, New Portals, KARMS, and Moon Taxi. Link in bio to hear these songs plus others. ... Supporting labels: Temporary Residence Ltd., Spunk Records, Rock Action Records, Battle Worldwide ... #newmusic #indiemusic #TheMatinee #Mogwai #DogInTheSnow #WHARVES #Baula #PinkMilk #Tennismusic #NewPortals #KARMS #MoonTaxi #indierock #alternative #synthpop #discopop #electropop #shoegaze #dreamgaze #cinematicindie #indiewestern #singersongwriter #newmusicalert #newmusicdiscovery #pressplay #takealisten