While Wounded Rhymes soothes as it slithers through hissing speakers at the Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen, the digitalised time on the vibrant screen of an unattended Blackberry ticks over all anticipated minutes and hours quite exasperatingly like a courtside clock whose face is vapidly emblazoned in the gaudy glimmer of Rolex. Today sees the release of
Young & Old – an explicitly, if timorously romantic record and the antithesis of Lykke Li's implicit salaciousness – and tonight sees its creators,
Tennis, take to this mildly picturesque slush-strewn square.
For Alaina Moore, Patrick Riley, and James Barone to grace us with their presence on the night of the day upon which their sophomore effort is outed – or perhaps more significantly that upon which they come of age as a band – instills a vague sense of honour within, as if we were present at the birth of Moore and Riley's firstborn. That we're within an hour of Valentine's Day by the time they sweep off stage only heightens this loved-up, eyelids-aflutter ambience. Moore dotingly plies Riley with Corona as a recalcitrant Hammond organ that halts play frequently throughout their hour-long first set is initially tinkered and later thumped irately when it fails to plump up the red-chested sentiments of Robin and the now-whopping whooping of Marathon. Expanded to a four-piece Moore, stranded stage-left, appears more peripheral than ever before as Riley's guitars are afforded a prominent, if perhaps all too dominant function with almost every kitsch lyricism on the swoonsome Baltimore drowning in tumbling swathes of treble. As such Riley is central in nigh on every respect, occupying both physical and metaphysical fore, wedding ring glinting beneath glaring spotlight, his chimerical chimes of guitar batting back Moore's more audible coos to assimilate a perceptibly vocal quality. However with every bass line coaxed out from one string on a heavily processed guitar, the low-end oomph is oft rendered mellow and is indeed intermittently lost (My Better Self lacks stomp; High Road becomes all but bereft of its customary pomp), allowing key melodies to frequently come from, well, Moore's keys as on the sportive thrust of Traveling.
While it may feel somewhat paradoxical to indulge in the resurfaced surf aesthetic of Seafarer at this time of year, with the set dedicated to the late Whitney it makes consummate sense for Moore to emerge from out behind the keyboards to belt out the shimmering R'n'B sass of Petition, her straightened goldilocks swaying as we sweat. Visibly elated both by our reaction and their recent promotion to playing "more than thirty minutes", they experiment with an almost ABBA-esque new one on which Moore croons: "You're the one that I've been looking for" over a seductive pop hook. She concedes that they'll "probably fuck it up" although if it were tarnished with any such imperfection it's barely a blemish for it's yet another supreme step forward. It follows on from a particularly succulent take on Pigeon that suggests the trio ought to be instantaneously installed as the
Primavera Sound house band. If not, they can fulfil the same roll round ours. Alaina; Patrick; James: if you're reading, see the below address.
They reemerge for a second set (or at least an unprecedented encore) during which they fumble for another, a "secret ending" as it's enchantingly designated, adding an air of fantasy to an already fantastic showing. It is to be the squiggly, rippled Long Boat Pass and whilst paradise may not be all around concurrently, a great happiness is indubitably abound.
