Anyone For Tennis?

This is the second time I've posted about Tennis aka married couple Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley. The first time was last August, when I discovered YouTube series What's In My Bag? via an entertaining episode with Matt Berry. One of his picks was Need Your Love from Tennis' 2020 album Swimmer, a satisfying slice of pop that evoked the 1970s but also sounded very now.

Sixth album Pollen is out on 10th February and it promises to be another much needed burst of sunshine, this time transporting the listener back to the 1980s. Second single Let's Make A Mistake Tonight came out earlier this month and it's another dose of pop perfection.

Given the band name, a casual internet search will throw up all sorts of musical red herrings: Jack Tennis, Tennis Pagan, Hooton Tennis Club (remember them?) and the official Tennis website does little more than advertise merch, tour dates and social media links. YouTube is a reliable treasure trove though, not limited to Tennis' own channel. 

 

Tennis sound pretty good live too, as this 2020 performance "In The Void" of How To Forgive demonstrates.

 

They can also do a good turn at stripped down indie guitar tunes too. 2014 single Bad Girls retains echoes of their second album Young & Old, which was produced by The Black Keys' Patrick Carney.

In fact, it was The Black Keys that first introduced me to Tennis back in 2014, with their compilation CD The Black Keys And Friends, given away free with Mojo magazine. This currently remains the sole song in my collection by Tennis. Taken from Young & Old, here's a gripping live performance of It All Feels The Same for the eTown online radio show from March 2013.

Coming back to the present and forthcoming album Pollen, Tennis' lead single was released in December, another should-have-been massive tune called One Night With The Valet. It's lush, cascading sound and cheesy-but-cool video belie the fact that the song is over and done in under two minutes.

Tennis have been releasing music since 2010 so I have a bit of catching up to do but the back catalogue shopping starts now.

What's In My Bag?

So, I've recently discovered the series What's In My Bag? on YouTube. It's a very simple premise: celebrity musician visits Amoeba Music in Hollywood ("The world's largest independent record store"), bags half a dozen or so vinyl LPs then presents them and why they've picked them. It's perfect capsule viewing, running anything from 2 to 20 minutes and it's utterly compelling. 

The range is pleasingly eclectic: in the past month alone, the weekly series has featured Rick Astley, Jeff Parker, Fontaines D.C., Franz Ferdinand and Damien Jurado. This week's spotlight was Matt Berry and, as you might expect, it's a real treat.

Matt's selection encompasses artists I've heard of but not really heard much by (Frank Zappa, Beach House, Damien Jurado, Emma Noble, Cluster), one I'm very familiar with (Bryan Ferry) to several I've never heard before now (Tennis, Hailu Mergia & the Walias Band) but frankly, they're all great. And Matt himself is on top form, alternately self-deprecating and couldn't-give-a-shit about his musical choices. 

Here's a selection from each of the featured albums, though not necessarily the same specific tracks featured in Matt's What's In My Bag? episode. Regardless, I feel another shopping spree coming on...

 

 

Beatmaker (Cover of Doris): Matt Berry ft. Emma Noble (2022)

Bognor Regis: Frank Zappa (1969)

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (Cover of Gertrude Niesen): Bryan Ferry (1974)

Need Your Love: Tennis (2020)

Ou-Ou-Ta: Hailu Mergia & The Walias Band (1975)

Johnny Caravella (Live @ Pustervik, Gothenburg, Sweden): Damien Jurado (2022)

Modern Love Stories: Beach House (2022)

Nabitte: Cluster (1972)

Like A Grain Of Sand Lost In Your Storm

I've been listening to GusGus' 2007 album Forever this week, which has prompted today's random half-dozen. 

The selection opens with one of the many remixes of 2011 single Over. This one's a collaboration between Carmine Conte & Matteo Milleri (aka Tale Of Us) and Douglas Benford & Ben 'Benge' Edwards (aka Tennis). 1999 single Ladyshave also gets an external overhaul, this time courtesy of Tim 'Love' Lee. 

 

Closing proceedings is an excellent live version of Arabian Horse, performed in Reykjavik for KEXP. You can find the full four-song set on YouTube and it's well worth a visit.

We were fortunate enough to have a short visit to Iceland in October 2016, taking in the usual tourist sights in a few days. It seems like forever since we were there, but at the same time certain moments seem like yesterday. A beautiful landscape like nothing I'd ever seen before and totally captivating. Something about the environment also seems to inspire and motivate music to move you or make you move. GusGus is a prime example of this.

1) Over (Life And Death Remix By Tale Of Us & Tennis) (2011)

2) MallFlowers (2007)

3) Purple (Album Version) (1997)

4) Ladyshave (Fully Bearded Mix By Tim 'Love' Lee) (1999)

5) Dominique (Album Version) (1999)

6) Arabian Horse (Live @ KEX Hostel, Reykjavik, Iceland, 10 December 2011)

Like A Grain Of Sand Lost In Your Storm (45:05)