Name: Tan Tan Therapy
Brand: Tenniscoats

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

MM186LP

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Colour

black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Discs

Download code

Download code: Yes

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Includes OBI and bonus track

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Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2022-10-14

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Shellshock

Tax rate GB

UPC / Barcode

880918818610

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1 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / black

MM186CD

{"blocks": [{"data": {"text": "MM186CD"}, "type": "paragraph"}]}

Download code: No

880918818627

{"blocks": [{"data": {"text": "880918818627"}, "type": "paragraph"}]}

1 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Tenniscoats

Genre GB

Alternative / Modern

Label GB

Morr Music

Tenniscoats' 2007 album Tan-Tan Therapy for the first time on vinyl.

Just over a decade ago, Japanese indie-pop duo Tenniscoats recorded Papa's Ear (2012) and Tan-Tan Therapy (2007), two albums made with musical and production help from Swedish post-rock/folk trio Tape. Originally released on Häpna, they are beautiful documents of the exploratory music made by a close-knit collective of musicians, fully at ease with each other, playing songs written by Tenniscoats and arranging them in gentle and generous ways. Released during a prolific phase of collaboration for Tenniscoats - during the late '00s and early '10s, they would also collaborate with Jad Fair, The Pastels, Secai and Pastacas - they have, however, never been available on vinyl. In collaboration with Alien Transistor, Morr Music is now reissuing these albums with bonus material.

Filled with graceful pop songs, autumnal folk tunes, and gentle yet risk-taking improvisations, Tan-Tan Therapy was the first Tenniscoats album to be released in Europe, after a run of albums on Japanese labels, and the excellent Live Wanderus (2005) on Australian imprint Chapter Music. It was also the first recorded evidence of their collaboration with the three members of Tape and that group's extended musical family. It opens with one of Tenniscoats' signature songs, the pop fantasia of "Baibaba Bimba", with Tenniscoats singer Saya repeating a light-headed incantation over joyous brass.

The essence of Tenniscoats is contained in "Baibaba Bimba": uplifting melody and playful musicianship, tinged with distant echoes of winsome melancholy. From there, Tan-Tan Therapy explores many hues of lustrous blue. "Oetu to kanki no Namoriuta (Given Song of Sob and Joy)" is an aquatic arbour, the musicians' gentle performances growing together like vines and seaweed as Saya's voice swims through the waterway. "Umbarepa!" is full of play and pleasure, sparkling with glockenspiel as snare drum tattoos push the song ever-forward. "Abi and Travel" floats past, a lovely instrumental built from shifting layers of synthesizer and pianet; "Good B.", an extra track originally only available on the Japanese edition of Tan-Tan Therapy, is added to this reissue, and follows a similar thread, its humming pump and Hammond organs swirling under beautiful vocals from Saya and guest performer Kazumi Nikaido.

Throughout, you can sense the deep empathy the members of Tenniscoats and Tape have for one another. It's a conversational, tender and, at times, fragile music that can only be created out of mutual trust and kindness, with each of the players contributing to the community of sound they're building. There's an element here, too, of feeling out the possibilities of what this creative meeting can achieve, something reflected in the loose-limbs sprawl of "Marui Hifo (Everyone)", which echoes the seaside drift of Bristol post-rock group Crescent, and the following "One Swan Swim", a dreamsong redolent of the sleepy sensorium of Robert Wyatt's "Rock Bottom". The freedom and liberty at the heart of Tenniscoats is something Tape and their friends have picked up on, beautifully so, and run with during the entirety of Tan-Tan Therapy. This is music with its wings outstretched, wanting to take to the air, ready to fly.

Bonus track LP included. Printed inner sleeves and OBI included. Download code included. 