Tennyson: Like What EP

Tennyson is an electronic music duo based in Edmonton, Canada. Siblings Luke and Tess Pretty have been performing together for years. With Luke on piano on Tess on drums, the two have played jazz covers across Canada and Beatles sets at weddings. If you’ve never heard Tennyson before, get ready for 20 minutes of clever samples, precise sound design, and wonderful drums all wrapped up between beautifully composed layers of electronic music influenced by the day to day life of the two siblings.

Opening up with an ambient soundscape of the ocean accompanied with thought-provoking synths, the title track Like What? quickly turns into a light groove that builds into your next jam. The “beautifully composed layers” become more apparent and your ear keeps picking up on different sounds that flow seamlessly into the next sample or next percussion part.

And that trend continues in Fault Line, boasting percussiveness from the drums and the synths. Luke’s voice pays us a visit and takes us through the song. The way it’s so expertly arranged it’s almost as if the vocals are holding our hand and walking us through this robust future-electronic world that Tennyson has created.

Creating worlds out of sound, although sometimes painstaking, is nothing new to Luke and Tess. And that’s apparent in the next track, 7:00 AM. Tennyson uses samples of food and drinks, sleeping and waking up, and an underlying alarm to create this morning-time symphony with a fun, jazzy feel.

The months of hard work that went behind each song on this EP really show. It’ll take multiple listens to catch all the small details but you’ll feel rewarded when you do. Download the Free EP on their bandcamp and check out a short documentary on Tennyson below.