Tennis Club

Originating from singer and guitarist Wilson Hernandez’s solitary bedroom recordings, Tennis Club pushed their surfy garage pop into markedly lo-fi territory, suggesting both the Beach Boys’ teenage innocence and the thick reverb favored by certain late-2000s indie outfits. Dreamy textures combined with melodic, ’60s-rooted pop craftsmanship on the group’s self-titled eight-song EP, issued in 2017.

The band coalesced in Joplin, Missouri, during the latter half of the 2010s. Hernandez initially handled songwriting and recording alone before recruiting friends Sean O’Dell on drums and Justin Akin on bass to flesh out the fuzzy garage-pop arrangements. Traces of ’60s surf pioneers blended with the raw, self-produced sound associated with Wavves, the Beets, and Crystal Stilts. Following the EP’s release the trio toured, yet an onstage disagreement at South By Southwest in 2018 prompted Hernandez to part ways with Akin. Tehya Deardorff assumed bass duties and participated in the sessions for the band’s 2019 album Pink.