Tennis is married to music

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      Tennis was never intended for mass consumption. The band’s 2011 debut, Cape Dory, was composed as a way for the husband-and-wife duo of Alaina Moore (vocals, keyboards) and Patrick Riley (guitar) to chronicle a life-changing sailing trip, and the pair never expected it to catch on with the public.

      “When we wrote our first album, we didn’t have any intentions for it,” Riley tells the Straight, reached on the phone at home in Denver. “We literally didn’t care if one other person heard it. We were just writing it for ourselves.”

      These days, however, a lot has changed. Moore and Riley’s private project has turned into a full-blown career, and they have spent the past few years building a following with frequent tours (with drummer James Barone). Their third LP, Ritual in Repeat, came out in September, and Riley explains it was written with an audience in mind.

      “Now that we’re doing this with the intention of other people hearing it, it’s a lot different,” the guitarist reflects. “I think most artists, at the end of the day, want their music to have value in someone’s life. They want it to benefit their life in some way, shape, or form. So you’re always trying to write a song that can change someone’s life for the better.”

      For Moore and Riley, achieving this more relatable sound meant adopting a new writing process. Instead of working in close collaboration, they developed ideas separately and didn’t share their songs until they were nearly complete.

      “We would wake up at the same time every day, start our respective projects at the same time every day, and end at the same time every day,” Riley remembers. “After about seven months of doing that, we finally started sharing our progress with each other and started completing songs.”

      Ironically, given that Moore and Riley worked on these 11 songs alone, the result is a welcoming and extroverted album that is the highlight of the band’s career to date. The shimmering soft-rock swagger of “Never Work for Free” will remind listeners that Tennis has spent time touring as Haim’s opening act, while the dreamy disco-soul groove of “I’m Callin’ ” glides into a stunning pop chorus that’s typical of Ritual in Repeat’s infectious sound.

      The collection’s curveball is “Wounded Heart”, a bare-bones acoustic number that makes up for its sparse arrangement with flowery poetry, its lyrics including the words steadfastly and disconsolate.

      These songs were recorded over three separate sessions with three different producers: Patrick Carney, of the Black Keys; Richard Swift, of the Shins; and Jim Eno, of Spoon. This ambitious multistudio approach marked another big shift from the group’s humble origins.

      And yet, despite Tennis’s growth, the band remains unchanged at its core: it’s still Moore and Riley, united in matrimony and music. “When we need to perform, we shut off our relationship and let the band and the music take precedence,” the guitarist explains. “At the end of the day, you’re trying to create something that’s bigger than you.”

      Tennis plays Fortune Sound Club on Tuesday (October 21).

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