Tennis

Cape Dory (Fat Possum)

By Emily Becker
Published: February 21st, 2011 | 7:00am

Tennis’s first long player, Cape Dory, is a collection of songs inspired by sailing. Though the duo, Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore, hail from land-locked Denver, the idea for Tennis while the couple cruised along the eastern seaboard for several months aboard a sailboat named Cape Dory. Nautical ideas pervade throughout the album. For example, on the title track Moore begs to be taken “out sailing” and dreams of “listening to the sound of the ocean swells.”

Like many of their contemporaries such as Best Coast to Summer Camp, Riley and Moore mine the melodic back catalog of early ‘60s pop, such as the doo-wops accompany cautionary tale “Marathon.” Cape Dory is an overtly feminine creation. The album brims with songs that Betty Draper might have enjoyed back when she was still gallivanting around Manhattan as the ingenue model, Betty Hofstadt. Yet it is not a period piece. The prominent bass lines on “Baltimore” and “Marathon,” as well as the depth of Moore’s vocals on “Pigeon” prevent Cape Dory from feeling like a preserved sound specimen accidentally captured in audio resin.

Don’t expect Tennis to adhere to its tony, aquatic motif forever either. With its nod to schlocky 70’s glam, the album jacket for Cape Dory already puts a chink in its upper crust armor. The cover photo features Moore provocatively posed in a blue lace jump suit and heels, in a homage to Knots Landing star Lisa Hartman’s 1979 album, Hold On. The photo couldn’t be farther from Cape Dory’s twin set pop, yet, both are playful and fun-loving, an M.O. that should serve the duo well regardless of the cultural milieu Tennis chooses to recreate on any future releases.

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