{"id":1595,"date":"2025-04-28T16:52:37","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T14:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/mail\/mypr-international-face-down-in-the-garden\/"},"modified":"2025-04-28T16:52:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T14:52:37","slug":"mypr-international-face-down-in-the-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/mail\/mypr-international-face-down-in-the-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"MyPR International: Face Down in the Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

Acclaimed indie-pop duo Tennis today releases their seventh studio album, Face Down In The Garden, arriving via their own Mutually Detrimental label. Produced and recorded by the husband and wife duo of Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore in their Denver, CO home studio, the album marks the final recordings from this incarnation of Tennis. Offsetting intuitive melodies with unusual arrangements, the new album sees the duo returning to their roots; making music that both feels familiar but also resists convention. Tennis has fully blossomed and leaves listeners with an LP that is unquestionably their most fully realized effort and a natural ending point.<\/p>\n

\u201cFace Down In The Garden is our seventh studio album,\u201d says Moore. \u201cThe inspiration for new work came while we were still on the road touring Pollen. We felt a clear pull to write new music, but ran up against a series of bizarre setbacks. We blew tires and lost an engine. I developed a chronic illness. We took a doomed voyage that culminated in an attempted robbery at sea. Fragments of songs that first arrived like gifts from the universe later refused to be completed. Our days were awash in major and minor crises that dragged the album out endlessly.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatrick and I felt out of sync with the world, as though we had been ejected from the flow of life. My response was to bury myself in my own memories. Those years weren\u2019t easier or better, but I could make sense of them. In Face Down In The Garden, I trace the arc of my life through a series of vignettes: a first moment of connection, a conversation at a wedding, a night o\ufb00shore, a tour diary.<\/p>\n

Over the years our sound has evolved into three distinct categories: Brill Building, synth-pop, and rock. Face Down In The Garden occupies all of that space. Except for the help of some outside drumming, we worked and recorded alone as we have done for the last few albums. We wanted to write ourselves o\ufb00 the map by doing the unexpected thing, offsetting intuitive melodies with unusual arrangements, to make music that feels familiar but resists convention. Despite being rattled by a strange year, it is our most confident album. We are very excited for you to listen, preferably loud and on headphones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tennis announced the news of their indefinite hiatus earlier this month with the release of the single \u201c12 Blown Tires.\u201d Met with an outpouring of love over the bittersweet news, Moore shed additional light on the duo\u2019s decision:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we recorded \u201912 Blown Tires\u2019 a few months later, I had the sense of distilling the past 15 years into four minutes of music. It felt like the end of something, though I wasn\u2019t sure what. Patrick and I spent most of our 20s and all of our 30s focused on Tennis. It has been the most joyous, bewildering, challenging, and humbling experience. After finishing Face Down In The Garden, it became clear that we had said everything we wanted to say and achieved everything we wanted to achieve with our band. This will be our last studio album, at least in this configuration as Tennis. We are ready to pursue other creative projects and to make space in our lives for new things. In that light, the upcoming tour feels more poignant, like a concluding thought. These two kids from Denver who only ever dreamed of playing a few house shows are very fulfilled. Perhaps we\u2019ll see you on the road. As always, thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

As noted, Tennis will both celebrate the arrival of Face Down In The Garden and say farewell to fans with a wide-ranging North American headline tour beginning May 16 at Las Vegas, NV\u2019s Swan Dive and then traveling into early September. Highlights include such iconic venues as Minneapolis, MN\u2019s First Avenue (May 21), Chicago, IL\u2019s The Salt Shed (May 23), New York City\u2019s The Rooftop at Pier 17 (June 1), Austin, TX\u2019s Stubb\u2019s Waller Creek Amphitheater (June 11), and Los Angeles, CA\u2019s famed Greek Theatre (August 20). Special guests include Husbands (May 16-17) and Billie Marten (May 21-June 11). For complete details and ticket availability, please visit tennis-music.com.<\/p>\n

Tennis will bookend this milestone moment by sharing Neutral Poetry: First Recordings, Unreleased Demos 2009-2010, a new EP of previously unheard tracks from the very beginning of their artistic career, available on Friday, May 16. The eight-song collection includes early versions of such fan favorites as \u201cCape Dory,\u201d \u201cMarathon,\u201d \u201cSouth Carolina,\u201d \u201cBaltimore,\u201d and \u201cPigeon,\u201d along with exclusive demo recordings of the never-before-available songs, \u201cKey Largo,\u201d \u201cApril and It\u2019s Still Snowing,\u201d and \u201cOne Day This Will Be a Good Songgg.\u201d<\/p>\n

PRAISE FOR FACE DOWN IN THE GARDEN<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cModern indie-pop staples\u201d \u2014 PITCHFORK<\/p>\n

\u201cThough Tennis may be over, their spirit, they seem to suggest, will live on.\u201d \u2014 PASTE<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a last hurrah, Face Down In The Garden earns the distinction: a classically Tennis record filled with grand, misty-eyed gestures like \u2018Weight of Desire\u2019 and \u2018At The Wedding,\u2019 it\u2019s the lush capstone to the sound they\u2019ve mastered.\u201d \u2014 THE FADER<\/p>\n

\u201cTennis is their shared language and with that mother-tongue of their long-term connection, they seem to find a way past those limitations I too face.\u201d \u2014 FAR OUT MAGAZINE<\/p>\n

\u201cDedicated listeners are rewarded thoroughly; true to their aims, this may be Tennis\u2019s best album yet.\u201d \u2014 EXCLAIM!<\/p>\n

\u201cTennis\u2019 Face Down in the Garden immortalizes, in the form of artistry\u2026the true emotional state and existential realities that the husband and wife duo were going through when they recorded it. And it\u2019s that honesty, and that purity, that will make Tennis\u2019 final record the most genuine one they ever made.\u201d \u2014 FLOOD<\/p>\n

\u201cTennis has always been a band of subtleties \u2014 their version of pop never chased trends or volume. They thrived in texture, in atmosphere, in that liminal space between nostalgia and presence. Face Down in the Garden distills everything they\u2019ve learned into a final, subdued statement. This isn\u2019t a grandiose exit. Just one last exhale. A subtle nod. Then silence.\u201d \u2014 NORTHERN TRANSMISSIONS<\/p>\n

\u201cFace Down in the Garden is a floaty, wonderful goodbye from the group which serves not just as a surprise, but a well-earned and satisfying farewell. Make no mistake, this is goodbye. Tennis knows they can end on a creative peak, and choose to. They have not run out of road, but are satisfied with the view of where they stop.\u201d \u2014 CULT FOLLOWING<\/p>\n

\u201cMoore\u2019s captivating voice floats effortlessly over a groovy bassline, dreamy synths, and starry vibraphone touches, scattered here and there.\u201d \u2014 CONSEQUENCE<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels good, intoxicating and addicting even, to fully embody desire at its sweetest and kindest form, rather than take into account all the times it has failed, and that sentiment is clear through the production.\u201d \u2014 ATWOOD MAGAZINE<\/p>\n

# # #<\/p>\n

TENNIS \u2013 FACE DOWN IN THE GARDEN TOUR 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n

MAY<\/p>\n

16 \u2013 Las Vegas, NV \u2013 Swan Dive *<\/p>\n

17 \u2013 Salt Lake City, UT \u2013 Metro Music Hall *<\/p>\n

18 \u2013 Salt Lake City, UT \u2013 Kilby Block Party #<\/p>\n

21 \u2013 Minneapolis, MN \u2013 First Avenue \u2020<\/p>\n

23 \u2013 Chicago, IL \u2013 The Salt Shed \u2020<\/p>\n

24 \u2013 Indianapolis, IN \u2013 HI-FI Annex \u2020<\/p>\n

25 \u2013 Cleveland, OH \u2013 Globe Iron \u2020<\/p>\n

27 \u2013 Toronto, ON \u2013 The Concert Hall \u2020<\/p>\n

30 \u2013 Boston, MA \u2013 Roadrunner \u2020<\/p>\n

31 \u2013 Philadelphia, PA \u2013 Franklin Music Hall \u2020<\/p>\n

JUNE<\/p>\n

1 \u2013 New York, NY \u2013 The Rooftop at Pier 17 \u2020<\/p>\n

3 \u2013 Washington, DC \u2013 The Anthem \u2020<\/p>\n

5 \u2013 Raleigh, NC \u2013 The Ritz \u2020<\/p>\n

6 \u2013 Atlanta, GA \u2013 The Eastern \u2020<\/p>\n

7 \u2013 Nashville, TN \u2013 Brooklyn Bowl Nashville \u2020<\/p>\n

9 \u2013 Dallas, TX \u2013 The Factory in Deep Ellum \u2020<\/p>\n

10 \u2013 Houston, TX \u2013 White Oak Music Hall (Downstairs) \u2020<\/p>\n

11 \u2013 Austin, TX \u2013 Stubb\u2019s Waller Creek Amphitheater \u2020<\/p>\n

AUGUST<\/p>\n

18 \u2013 San Diego, CA \u2013 Humphreys Concerts by the Bay<\/p>\n

20 \u2013 Los Angeles, CA \u2013 Greek Theatre<\/p>\n

22 \u2013 Pioneertown, CA \u2013 Pappy + Harriet\u2019s<\/p>\n

23 \u2013 Phoenix, AZ \u2013 The Van Buren<\/p>\n

24 \u2013 Santa Fe, NM \u2013 The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing Co.<\/p>\n

26 \u2013 Denver, CO \u2013 The Mission Ballroom<\/p>\n

28 \u2013 Boise, ID \u2013 Treefort Music Hall<\/p>\n

29 \u2013 Portland, OR \u2013 McMenamins Grand Lodge<\/p>\n

30 \u2013 Vancouver, BC \u2013 Malkin Bowl<\/p>\n

SEPTEMBER<\/p>\n

2 \u2013 Sacramento, CA \u2013 Channel 24 ^<\/p>\n

4 \u2013 Saratoga, CA \u2013 The Mountain Winery ^<\/p>\n

* w\/ Special Guests Husbands<\/p>\n

\u2020 w\/ Special Guest Billie Marten<\/p>\n

# Festival Appearance<\/p>\n

# # #<\/p>\n

TENNIS \u2013\u00a0FACE DOWN IN THE GARDEN (Mutually Detrimental) Tracklist:<\/strong><\/p>\n