Tenniscoats

This is the seventh release for Tenniscoats, the Tokyo area-based husband and wife team of Saya and Takashi Ueno, and their first for the Häpna label. They are also members of the Japanese music collective Maher Shalal Hash Baz. On Tan-Tan Therapy, they distill the experiences of the last two years, when Tenniscoats and Tape (Andreas and Johan Berthling, Tomas Hallonsten) have socialized, toured together and exchanged musical ideas. The album gives a slightly new picture of Tenniscoats. Found here is a fuller dynamic spectrum and richer use of diverse sound elements that are usually found in their live shows. Yet the album has a concise pop feeling to it, in a calm and multi-faceted way. The level of detail and the different sound world is, to a large extent, due to the musicians of Tape, as they have been involved both in the production and arrangement of the record. To Tenniscoats' original setting, various horn instruments, double bass, zither, organ, glockenspiel and electronic instruments have been added. The recordings were intuitively constructed during a couple of days in Stockholm and Cologne with Tape, Andreas Söderström, Leo Svensson, Lars Skoglund and others. Johan Berthling describes the record as such: "Their starting point is pop songs, but with a staggeringly free approach: psychedelic folk tunes, complex instrumentals and short pop jewels side by side, everything is possible. A song can be performed in a myriad ways. Their interplay is angular and at the same time the most sensitive one has heard. A feeling of a music that constantly goes on, whether Saya and Ueno are on stage or not. A music free of pretensions, but urgent as few things I have heard."