Acclaimed indie-pop duo Tennis has shared “12 Blown Tires,” the latest single from their highly anticipated new album, Face Down In The Garden, arriving via their own Mutually Detrimental label on Friday, April 25. Pre-orders and pre-saves are available now. Produced and recorded by the husband and wife duo of Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore in their Denver, CO home studio, the album and new single will mark the final recordings from this incarnation of Tennis.

“On a cross-country drive at the end of tour, our van and trailer blew four tires in quick succession,” says Alaina Moore. “That particular stretch of highway was a tire graveyard. I counted the shredded remains of twelve tires from where we sat on the side of the road, swapping out our last spare. Our bad luck was heavily contrasted by the good night we’d just had in Houston. The highs and lows of touring are unnatural, disorienting. On the shoulder of I-40, I began writing the lyrics to ’12 Blown Tires.’ It is a constellation of memories from the road, and of our marriage, two endeavors that are completely, hopelessly entangled.

When we recorded ’12 Blown Tires’ a few months later, I had the sense of distilling the past 15 years into four minutes of music. It felt like the end of something, though I wasn’t sure what. Patrick and I spent most of our 20s and all of our 30s focused on Tennis. It has been the most joyous, bewildering, challenging, and humbling experience. After finishing Face Down In The Garden, it became clear that we had said everything we wanted to say and achieved everything we wanted to achieve with our band. This will be our last studio album, at least in this configuration as Tennis. We are ready to pursue other creative projects and to make space in our lives for new things. In that light, the upcoming tour feels more poignant, like a concluding thought. These two kids from Denver who only ever dreamed of playing a few house shows are very fulfilled. Perhaps we’ll see you on the road. As always, thank you.”

Listen to “12 Blown Tires”

As noted, Tennis will both celebrate the arrival of Face Down In The Garden and say farewell to fans with a wide-ranging North American headline tour beginning May 16 at Las Vegas, NV’s Swan Dive and then traveling into early September. Highlights include such iconic venues as Minneapolis, MN’s First Avenue (May 21), Chicago, IL’s The Salt Shed (May 23), New York City’s The Rooftop at Pier 17 (June 1), Austin, TX’s Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater (June 11), and Los Angeles, CA’s famed Greek Theatre (August 20). Special guests include Husbands (May 16-17) and Billie Marten (May 21-June 11). Tickets for all announced dates go on sale this Friday, February 14 at 10:00 am (local). For complete details and ticket availability, please visit tennis-music.com.

Tennis will bookend this milestone moment by sharing Neutral Poetry: First Recordings, Unreleased Demos 2009-2010, a new EP of previously unheard tracks from the very beginning of their artistic career, available on Friday, May 16. The eight-song collection includes early versions of such fan favorites as “Cape Dory,” “Marathon,” “South Carolina,” “Baltimore,” and “Pigeon,” along with exclusive demo recordings of the never-before-available songs, “Key Largo,” “April and It’s Still Snowing,” and “One Day This Will Be a Good Songgg.”

Face Down In The Garden marks the seventh studio album from Tennis as well as the eagerly awaited follow-up to 2023’s critically acclaimed Pollen, which earned praise from Pitchfork as “reliably vibey and genuinely inspiring.” Offsetting intuitive melodies with unusual arrangements, the new album sees the duo returning with music that both feels familiar but also resists convention. Songs like the recently released “At The Wedding,” and “Weight of Desire” – both available everywhere now with the latter joined by an official music video directed by frequent visual collaborators Blossom Liu and Danny Gray streaming now at YouTube – highlight Tennis’ ever-expanding range as writers and producers, evolving beyond their girl-group roots into what is unquestionably their most fully realized effort to date.

“Face Down In The Garden is our seventh studio album,” says Moore. “The inspiration for new work came while we were still on the road touring Pollen. We felt a clear pull to write new music, but ran up against a series of bizarre setbacks. We blew tires and lost an engine. I developed a chronic illness. We took a doomed voyage that culminated in an attempted robbery at sea. Fragments of songs that first arrived like gifts from the universe later refused to be completed. Our days were awash in major and minor crises that dragged the album out endlessly.

“Patrick and I felt out of sync with the world, as though we had been ejected from the flow of life. My response was to bury myself in my own memories. Those years weren’t easier or better, but I could make sense of them. In Face Down In The Garden, I trace the arc of my life through a series of vignettes: a first moment of connection, a conversation at a wedding, a night offshore, a tour diary.

Over the years our sound has evolved into three distinct categories: Brill Building, synth-pop, and rock. Face Down In The Garden occupies all of that space. Except for the help of some outside drumming, we worked and recorded alone as we have done for the last few albums. We wanted to write ourselves off the map by doing the unexpected thing, offsetting intuitive melodies with unusual arrangements, to make music that feels familiar but resists convention. Despite being rattled by a strange year, it is our most confident album. We are very excited for you to listen, preferably loud and on headphones.”

TENNIS – FACE DOWN IN THE GARDEN TOUR 2025

MAY
16 – Las Vegas, NV – Swan Dive *
17 – Salt Lake City, UT – Metro Music Hall *
18 – Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Block Party #
21 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue †
23 – Chicago, IL – The Salt Shed †
24 – Indianapolis, IN – HI-FI Annex †
25 – Cleveland, OH – Globe Iron †
27 – Toronto, ON – The Concert Hall †
30 – Boston, MA – Roadrunner †
31 – Philadelphia, PA – Franklin Music Hall †

JUNE
1 – New York, NY – The Rooftop at Pier 17 †
3 – Washington, DC – The Anthem †
5 – Raleigh, NC – The Ritz †
6 – Atlanta, GA – The Eastern †
7 – Nashville, TN – Brooklyn Bowl Nashville †
9 – Dallas, TX – The Factory in Deep Ellum †
10 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall (Downstairs) †
11 – Austin, TX – Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater †

AUGUST
18 – San Diego, CA – Humphreys Concerts by the Bay
20 – Los Angeles, CA – Greek Theatre
22 – Pioneertown, CA – Pappy + Harriet’s
23 – Phoenix, AZ – The Van Buren
24 – Santa Fe, NM – The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing Co.
26 – Denver, CO – The Mission Ballroom
28 – Boise, ID – Treefort Music Hall
29 – Portland, OR – McMenamins Grand Lodge
30 – Vancouver, BC – Malkin Bowl

SEPTEMBER

2 – Sacramento, CA – Channel 24 ^
4 – Saratoga, CA – The Mountain Winery ^

* w/ Special Guests Husbands
† w/ Special Guest Billie Marten
# Festival Appearance