Face Down In The Garden, Tennis’ seventh album, is both culmination and reflection of their career. From the perspective of fifteen years on the road and ten thousand miles at sea, frontwoman Alaina Moore attempts to distill the arc of a life into vignettes: a first moment of connection, a conversation at a wedding, a night offshore, a sprawling tour diary.
The album is succinct but potent, highlighting Tennis’ concise songwriting and unconventional arrangements. Self-produced and recorded in their studio, Tennis builds upon their early minimalist girl-group sound, expanding into more mature synth-pop and rock elements.
The duo met in the University of Colorado’s philosophy department in 2008, when Patrick Riley recognized Moore as the waitress from a diner he frequented. (This moment was later immortalized in their song Hotel Valet.) After graduating, they spent eight months living aboard a small sailboat, voyaging along the eastern seaboard–a practice that would become integral to their creative process. Their debut album Cape Dory (2011, Fat Possum) documents that experience. Tennis booked their first tour through the help of a robust DIY scene. While on the road, their lead single “Marathon” went viral, gaining them sudden notoriety. Cape Dory debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Heatseeker chart and transitioned Tennis from house shows to main stages in the course of a year.
Tennis recorded their sophomore effort Young & Old (2012) with Patrick Carney of the Black Keys, marking their first collaboration with an outside producer and their television debuts on The Tonight Show, The Late Show, and Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
Moore and Riley solidified their creative autonomy by forming the label Mutually Detrimental in 2016. Yours Conditionally, their first self-release, became their most commercially successful album, charting on Billboard’s top 50 vinyl sales and proving their DIY roots as a cornerstone to their sound and narrative.
