Tokyo’s Tenniscoats centre around the duo of Saya and Taskashi Ueno, a married couple who have been making music since 2000, and together run the highly regarded Japanese label Majikick Records. Tenniscoats manage to reign in the sounds of the avant-garde and knit them into accessible and wonderfully listenable vignettes in which you find yourself going back to again and again. 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.

Tenniscoats have become one of the hippest bands on the underground scene, though their vast legion of worldwide fans probably indicates that ‘underground’ is no longer applicable. Such renown is helped, of course, by an ability to produce the kind of music that grabs your attention whatever you’re doing. Actually, ‘band’ is something of a misnomer for Tenniscoats. In essence, they are a duo; guitarist Takashi Ueno works with Saya on all Tenniscoats recordings and performances. They collaborate freely and regularly with an eclectic group of accomplices, seemingly incapable of not making music.

12 February 2009 – Auckland – Cross St Studios
with: Dean Roberts, Rachel Shearer (aka Lovely Midget), Sean O’Reilly.

START: THU 12 FEBRUARY 2009, 12:00 PM
VENUE/CITY: CROSS ST STUDIOS, AUCKLAND.

26 February 2009 – Christchurch – Marsupial
with: Tim Coster, Seth Rees (Aus).

START: THU 26 FEBRUARY 2009, 12:00 PM
VENUE/CITY: MARSUPIAL, CHRISTCHURCH.