Tenniscoats - Papas Ear

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5...according to our Mike on Wed 08 Feb, 2012.

I've got a bit of a soft spot for Tenniscoats, although my dominant memory of them is that their last album (that one in the sexy fold-out card sleeve) had loads of tracks and seemed to go on forever and ever with its incessant fragile beauty. This time round they're dropping a much more digestible 10-song CD on the excellent Hapna imprint, who also put out their awesome split 7” with Tape last year which (at the time of writing) we still mysteriously have a handful left of. I thought that one would be long gone by now. Anyway, this new CD certainly serves as a welcome reminder of what's so beautiful and lovely about this duo, with hushed flutes and xylophones and pianos and fingerpicked guitars over fragile, understated female vocals. There's something about them that reminds me of early Disney soundtracks, but not in a cheesy way, just really earnest and heartwarming and simple and unpatronising, minimal and melodic but always with interesting instrumentation and arrangements. There's even some bouncy drums on the Jon Brion-esque Papaya. In fact, yes, I think I've pretty much struck on what their signature sound is. It's Jon Brion soundtracking early Disney. Another thing that strikes me about this record is how much more consistent it sounds than the previous efforts I've encountered. There's always plenty of prettiness to go around but on here it seems to have been concentrated, the fat trimmed, and much effort seems to have gone into capturing all the different tones they expose us to over the course of this record. Seductive stuff indeed.

Japanese duo Tenniscoats have been running together for more than ten years. Running is the tempo you need to have to keep up with these guys: always touring, recording and working on new projects.

Their music is all about catching the moment. Next time everything will sound different. They are true improvisors inside their own musical world. The music on this record adds a new facet to their universe. Deeper, more intense but with still visible signs of their trademark playfulness despite the fact that the album was recorded during dark wintertime.

This is the second time they have come to Stockholm, Sweden, to record their music. Musicians around the group Tape and label Häpna gathered together with producer Johan Berthling during a week in the studio to record most of the music for Papa’s Ear. Compared to the recording of Tan-Tan Therapy (2007, Häpna) which was very haphazard, everything started on a new level here. There was already a plan on how to work, ideas around the sound that was aimed for.

In typical Tenniscoats fashion Saya completed some of the lyrics in the last minute. There is always a new song to record, the flow of new material seems inexhaustible. Welcome to enter the door to Tenniscoats magical, mystery world.

Musicians: Saya, Ueno, Johan Berthling, Tomas Hallonsten, Fredrik Ljungkvist, Lars Skoglund, Andreas Söderström and Andreas Werliin.

Tracks:

1. Higa noboru (The Sun Rises)
2. Hikoki (Airplane)
3. Kuki no soko (The Bottom of the Air)
4. Papaya
5. Sappolondon
6. New Seasons Dead
7. På floden (On the River)
8. Sabaku (Desert)
9. Tanjobi no yokan (Expectation of Birth)
10. Nigor (Cloudy Air Is Not So Bad)

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