soccer mommy

update: i love this album

feels like an alt rock record you would’ve liberated from the depths of a used bin in the '90s, but like the dust and sticker residue on it have somehow crept into the sound of the music itself

production on even the most normal-sounding song here is crazy psychedelic, i fucking adore it

I, too, adore the sound of this album. I’m trying to think of a point of comparison?

oh wow the end of "don't ask me" !

this absolutely delivers

Absolutely, every song is charming

texturally it's kinda like a more successful version of machina/the machines of god, tracks like "this time" and "wound" if they weren't so flat

The goth and shoegaze textures are great. It's like she's imbued them into her own distinctive songwriting, rather than merely aping the sound like so much modern shoegaze does.

Overall tone is crisp and murky in equal measure. Love it.

The lyrics on 'Still' slay me.

I hear Garbage as well. Great album.

Lol I was thinking Machina/Machines of God might be a reference point but did not have the emotional energy to confirm

“don’t ask me” is perfect

Ok I'll admit that she was an artist I had "written off/pointedly ignored because of their name" but I checked out "Shotgun" anyway and my god, this has one of the most euphoric choruses I've ever heard. It's all about the dreamy pastel chord progression and melody, but the production touches are perfect too--the stuttering snare fill when she sings "shotgun", the sweet shiny OPN Juno squiggles. The rest of the album sounds pretty good so far too. Brad otm here:

feels like an alt rock record you would’ve liberated from the depths of a used bin in the '90s, but like the dust and sticker residue on it have somehow crept into the sound of the music itself

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, June 23, 2022 4:25 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I feel quite a few people who have previously ignored Soccer Mommy will check the new album out due to the OPN connection and be pleasantly surprised by the quality of Allison's songwriting.

It's definitely her best record but the production is proving divisive on the SM stan Reddit. Personally I think it's a perfect balance - OPN does just enough to add gritty gloss to the songs, but never tramples on the songwriting. See 'I Feel it All the Time' - Lopatin is smart enough to know Juno synth arpeggios don't belong here. He steps back and lets the song shine.

the production is incredible idk what anyone could have a problem with. it's not a huge departure either, just feels like a fully realised version of the textural stuff from the last album

I agree. It feels like a very logical progression, and if we didn’t know that there was a name producer involved I don’t think many people would be thinking of it as a big shift (other than to note how great the record sounds).

I love the 90s and I love Opn but this record didn’t do anything for me

It's definitely her best record

Still prefer Clean, but this one's pretty good.

Yes this is quite excellent!!

I don't understand why Pitchfork didn't BNM this. At all. I guess because it's not jazz or experimental ambient or MOR R&B.

The old Pitchfork would have lapped this up.

She kinda nailed it with "Circle the Drain," and imo "Shotgun" while a great song with a dope hook needed some similar arrangement flourishes from "Circle the Drain" to keep it from sounding so repetitive by the time the third chorus arrives. I'll probably enjoy the record as a whole when I get around to it.

I love the 90s and I love Opn but this record didn’t do anything for me

I love the '90s, never heard 0pm, and this def does nothing for me... I don't hear much in the way of "songs" (and I guess the production isn't necessarily my cup of tea, either)

Hard to reconcile the genius of opn with this mediocre bullshit

bye bitch

^That phrase was my exact thought when I just saw Musk was terminating his Twitter bid

it’s an album by soccer mommy not opn ffs

once again being bowled over by "night swimming" being one of the best break up songs ever written...

i love the way she establishes this feral desire, situating herself among the elements, broken away from society, gesturing at feelings and environments that transcend the human experience...

I want someone who's following a dream
Someone like me
Who feels the air inside their body running free
I want the breeze

Well, the moon is in the water
And I'm dancing with the current and my clothes
Are on the beach
You stay with the earth
'Cause you don't understand why I would wanna freeze
The irony

...and then threads it back into modern interior life, unable to run wild, fumbling to articulate her feelings as her partner is distracted by technology...

We learned to dance, and I was swaying all alone
You're stiff as stone
You lock your heart up in a place I'll never know
The distance grows

Try to break your walls
But all I ever end up breaking is your bones
Bruises show
Standing in the living room
Talking as you're staring at your phone
It's a cold I've known

...and then back to the dark beach and cold water, bringing the story full circle from the first verse, but also tying the stone metaphor together just in this stanza, in general i just love the imagery here, the idea of hoping that this exciting, spontaneous moment will re-electrify your connection w/ this person, only to come up for air and be faced w/ the truth... the idea of water being a place that you can be cleansed and reborn, except she emerges freezing and alone, no rapture to be found...

You watched me sink beneath the water like a stone
And then let go
I came for air and found that I was all alone
I should've known

Swam back to the shoreline
And found that all you left me was a note
I read it slow
You said that you had loved me
But you knew that you would end up on your own
A sinking stone

perfect song

Great post, thanks - never paid that much attention to her lyrics

booming post j0rd

<3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oji9RtJkNu4

the gentle fog of noise enveloping her in this performance ._.

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, June 24, 2020 4:00 AM (three years ago)

still

Bleak House is incredible. Krook exploding is perfect.

saw her last night opening this little tour of shows w/ no band

firstly, she is incredible in this format, i've enjoyed the previous shows i've seen w/ the band but her on solo electric guitar playing up the shoegazey reverby noisy aspect of her sound is another level for me

she played 5 new songs -- evergreen, m, lost, salt and wound, driver. she put a clip of "lost" on IG yesterday, it sounds like she's going back towards the sound of her early records.

whoops did not mean to press enter there ... continuing on

https://www.instagram.com/p/C7pUt-3SE27/?hl=en

she also posted when announcing this tour that w/ her new music she wanted to "focus on the songwriting and keep the production more organic." further, at the show last night she didn't play anything off 'sometimes, forever' nor did she once mention it or even mention that she wasn't mentioning it. she played mostly songs from the debut and before, w/ some color theory songs (sounding as vital as ever i swear to god) peppered in there too

i have to say "lost" kinda blew me away, i'm really excited for the new music. "salt and wound" also stood out but they were all good. i wouldn't normally wanna take too much away from solo live renditions of unreleased recorded songs but she seems to be signaling pretty heavily that it's a back to her sweet spot kinda album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dns6C3MTauI

interesting direction for her. you can really hear the sheryl crow, FM radio kinda influence as this gets going. kinda love it

reminds me of the ballads from jagged little pill and honestly not much music reminds me of those!!!

production is weirdly blown out though that might be youtube compression

oh yeah that's youtube compression

Thanks for the write up! Tbh, I don't care much for the first album (or at least I would place it far below the 2nd and 3rd) and going back to basics isn't really what I wanted from her. Her choice to make obv but I'm wondering what triggered it.

it's fine but i miss the sonic ambition of the last album

i kinda wish she'd do something a little more uptempo, though mostly just because when i saw her live last year i wished her songs had a bit more energy overall, it was kinda underwhelming

I was there for the same solo show Jordan was at in Queens and also thought it was a strong performance that left me excited for a new album. It did feel odd that she didn't play a single thing off Sometimes, Forever, but I was happy to hear stuff from Collection. She seemed like she was in a chill, funny mood which was charming, given that her music can feel pretty stark.

I think "Lost" is really lovely and seems to be less of a "lead single" type of song--maybe more of something to just set the tone for the LP or even a one-off. I don't know much of her biography, but I remember the Pitchfork feature from a couple years ago said her mother had been dealing with a terminal illness for years and it seems like this song is dealing with all the emotions wrapped up in that, or perhaps in a loved one's death. Having dealt with that myself, the song definitely landed with me and the strings were a welcome touch, even if I'm not necessarily craving a whole album of songs that sound like this.

New album coming out in October. As expected, she's stripping things back. Not what I really wanted from her but new single sounds breezy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbS2shn50MY

i like this a lot more than "lost"

the album showed up in my inbox & the production flourishes of the first two singles are mostly a bait and switch. it's largely a dreamy reverby guitar album and there's some really killer songs imo

oh hell yeah

to say that i was thinking of you heavily at times...

like i'm genuinely a fan of "lost" in its recorded form but the solo guitar version reduces me to a puddle. the rest of the album hews closer to this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_JmdIReUcc

Hold on, are you then saying that the rest of the record is MORE stripped back than the singles?

well i'm not sure if i agree that the singles are stripped back. i know it's sorta how she has described the album but "lost" to me is quite ornate, it has to have more instruments on it than anything she's recorded previously. the production on the album is also just so rich and full even when the songs get pared down in terms of instrumentation that it's hard for me view it thru the lens of being stripped back. the first two songs hint at like a clairo-esque direction w/ those orchestral flourishes but that's a red herring. there's an ambient synth haze swirling together w/ guitar reverb kinda thing happening that doesn't sound too off of 'color theory' to me