Soviet League
Los Angeles is an expansive city, but much of its music scene tends to cluster at the upper echelons of the great nightclub pyramid whose peak emerges somewhere on the east side, a world away from the glitz and gaud of the legendary West Hollywood venues. Silverlake's Club Spaceland is arguably the premier tier in this regard. A few years back, two of the club's more renowned denizens found themselves brushing by one another so often that an alliance of some sort became inevitable. These were The Sugarplastic and The Autumns, whose many residencies at Spaceland helped solidify both groups' notoriously cultish followings.
The Sugarplastic was born for a fanatical few. Its first release was a vinyl box set which sent the tastemakers at LA's KXLU into tizzies. This, a few singles on various indie labels, the band's quirky half-hour or less performance formula, their appearances with fellow up-and-comers such as Mazzy Star and a number of other tributaries of fate converged to send the group sailing beneath the starry gaze of Geffen Records, which swiftly snatched them up. That resulted in 1996's Bang! The Earth is Round. Despite Geffen's subsequent seasonal housecleanings (which, as with all major labels, were becoming more and more seasonal in the course of the 1990s mergers and acquisitions) and the band's consequent exit from the label, the record exposed them to a larger audience, which lay in eager wait for future releases. They would not be disappointed, as a new track (recorded by Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh) would shortly appear on the Power Puff Girls soundtrack in 2000, followed quickly by a new full-length, Resin. The latter sealed frontman Ben Eshbach's reputation as a first-class composer and songwriter among critics and close observers of the LA scene. It was therefore not a complete surprise when the band's subsequent record, the softly beautiful Will, secured the LA Weekly's coveted Album of the Year award on its release in 2005.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Los Angeles, a group of British-obsessed youths calling themselves The Autumns were generating a fair deal of excitement in a number of otherwise insular milieus throughout the city. The band's debut EP (Suicide at Strell Park) and LP (The Angel Pool) both appeared in 1997. When club promoter/photographer/director/all-around renaissance girl Piper Ferguson heard them on KCRW, she was moved to contact the band and ask them to perform at her weekly mod club, Café Bleu. The band obliged, and the decision turned out to be a prudent one. Hoards of young hipsters flocked to the club to see their regular performances over the next several years. What is more, the same trick worked when the group accepted (with some trepidation) an invitation to appear at LA's hub of all things gothic, Coven 13. The Autumns thus emerged as a genre-crossing darling in LA and, with repeated US tours, several other cities across the country. Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde soon caught wind of the band and wound up producing their second album and then releasing their third and fourth on his London-based Bella Union label (home of Fleetfoxes, Explosions in the Sky and Midlake). The band was received very warmly overseas, garnering four-star reviews in MOJO, The Times of London, The Independent and others.
When Eshbach and Autumns frontman Matthew Kelly finally crossed paths personally at the behest of Spaceland promoter Jen Tefft, the two proved a match. Their bands began appearing together more frequently. They co-headlined a one-month residency at Spaceland. They exchanged records. They appeared on one another's records. Finally, they took the plunge and made a record. It's been two years, too many musicians to count, endless refining and recasting, but at long last The Soviet League has arrived. It is a lavish, ubermelodic gem of an album that words could too easily deflate. It is therefore best that you simply listen.
