Show Spotlight: Tennis System @ DC9, 11/18/19

With so much coming through DC on a regular basis, how will you ever decide what to go see? Let Fuzzy Logic help.

It'll be a homecoming of sorts when the LA-based noise outfit Tennis System hits the stage at DC9 tonight (tickets and info here).

Eight long years have gone by since Tennis System mastermind Matty Taylor took his love of shoegaze from greater DC to the City of Angels, and he returns for an evening with his band now a permanent trio and with a recently released LP to celebrate.

Lovesick, released in early September on Graveface, shows off Taylor's affinity for putting together wicked bursts of skull-splitting noise and playing those against his vocals, which have an almost poetic softness about them. Ferocious fuzz and tinkering with decibel levels is the name of the game, and Tennis System's machinations can often leave one feeling breathless.   

“Everyone finds something they fall in love with, for me it was music,” says Taylor. “I’m always searching for that feeling I had as a child discovering it for the first time. Even though so much of this album is about frustration, at the end of the day it’s really about having a passion for something.”

I've got one parting thought for those who are heading out to see Tennis System this evening. As the band so endearingly says on their social media, "bring earplugs."

[posted 11.18.19]