Soccer Mommy
Biography
Sophie Allison has always written candidly about her life, making Soccer Mommy one of indie rock’s most interesting and beloved artists of the last decade. Allison has used Soccer Mommy’s songs as a vehicle to sort through the thoughts and encounters that inevitably come with the reality of growing up. After all, Soccer Mommy began as a bedroom-to-Bandcamp exercise with teenage Allison posting her plaintive songs as demos. Over the years, though, she has often enhanced that sound, using the endless production possibilities, newly at her fingertips, to outstrip singer-songwriter stereotypes. The records would start with songwriting’s kernels of truth, and she would then imagine all the unexpected shapes they could take. Every Soccer Mommy record has felt like a surprise.
On Soccer Mommy’s fourth album, the tender but resolute Evergreen, Allison is again writing about her life. But that life’s different these days: Since making her previous album, 2022’s Sometimes, Forever, Allison experienced a profound and also very personal loss. New songs emerged from that change, unflinching and sometimes even funny reflections on what she was feeling. (Speaking of funny, this is a Soccer Mommy album, so there’s an ode to Allison’s purple-haired wife in the game Stardew Valley, too.) These songs were, once again, Allison’s way to sort through life, to ground herself. She wanted them to sound that way, too, to feel as true to the demos—raw and relatable, unvarnished and honest—as possible. The songwriting would again lead where the production would follow. Nothing overindulgent, everything real.
Video & Press
Soccer Mommy’s Visceral Chronicle of Loss
On the new album “Evergreen,” the artist Sophie Allison makes sadness come alive and transform. [The New Yorker] By Hanif Abdurraqib The earliest iteration of Soccer Mommy emerged out of a bedroom in the summer of 2015, with a handful of lo-fi, home-recorded songs posted to Bandcamp. The songs were sparse and built around acoustic guitar, […]
Pitchfork’s 36 Most Anticipated Albums of Fall 2024: Christopher Owens, Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn, Soccer Mommy
[Pitchfork] Christopher Owens: I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair October 18 Nearly a decade after releasing his last solo album—2015’s Chrissybaby Forever—former Girls frontman Christopher Owens is returning with I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair. The 10-song LP includes his comeback single “I Think About Heaven,” from earlier this summer, as well as the follow-up track “No Good.” Owens laid […]
See Soccer Mommy Bring Out Phoebe Bridgers for Elliott Smith Cover at L.A. Show
In addition to rendition of “The Biggest Lie,” Sophie Allison also debuts a handful of new songs at latest gig [Rolling Stone] BY DANIEL KREPS Soccer Mommy welcomed guest Phoebe Bridgers onstage Tuesday during her Los Angeles gig, with the duo delivering a rendition of Elliott Smith’s “The Biggest Lie.” Taking the stage at the Masonic […]
Soccer Mommy: Tiny Desk Concert
[NPR] By ANDREW FLANAGAN WATCH HERE When Sophie Allison says to our friends and coworkers assembled around the desk, “We’re finally doin’ it,” she really means it. A little less than exactly three years ago, Allison had just released the wonderful Color Theory as Soccer Mommy; it’s an album that marked significant strides in her songwriting and production. […]
Backstage With Soccer Mommy at New York’s Webster Hall
[Rolling Stone] Sophie Allison raised the stakes this summer with Sometimes, Forever, her third album as Soccer Mommy. With cool, unexpected production twists courtesy of Daniel Lopatin (the Weeknd, FKA Twigs), and typically revelatory songwriting from Allison, it’s an experiment that paid off — and she and her band been having a lot of fun bringing […]