PIP BLOM Announce details of new album, Bobbie. Out on Heavenly Recordings 20.10.23.
Share new track, ‘Is This Love?’ feat. Alex Kapranos and announce run of U.K. headline shows & Blur support slot in Amsterdam.
Amsterdam’s Pip Blom have today announced details of their new album, Bobbie, and shared the track ‘Is This Love?’, featuring Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos. Released on Friday 20th October 2023 on Heavenly Recordings, the band previously shared ‘Tiger’ from the album.
Talking about ‘Is This Love?’ and the process of collaborating with Alex, the band said:
The nice thing about working with Alex, besides the fact that the atmosphere was really good, was that we both had quite different perspectives. Whereas I am a bit more rock by nature, Alex is a lot funkier. And that turned out to be the perfect addition for this song, both in the verses and completely in the chorus. Never before has such a funky Pip Blom song appeared, and we all absolutely love it.
Listen to ‘Is This Love?’ HERE
Produced by Dave McCracken, crafted on computers and featuring synths, the album marks a departure in sound, but as ever with Pip Blom, their knack for colourful and vivacious pop shines through across the 12 tracks.
Their third album following Boat (2019) & Welcome Break (2021), the track listing of Bobbie is as follows:
- Not Tonight
2. Tiger
3. Red
4. Kiss Me By Candlelight
5. I Can Be Your Man
6. Where’d You Get My Number
7. Brand New Car
8. Is This Love?
9. Fantasies
10. Again
11. Get Back
12. 7 Weeks
The album can be pre-ordered HERE
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For their third album, Bobbie, Pip Blom, the band’s namesake and main writer, decided to rip it up and start again. After making her name as one of the brightest indie rock singers around through two albums and a lauded live show honed over gruelling years of touring, the new album sees her and the band take a delightful left turn into thumping, carefree synth pop.
While admitting to the cliché of a guitar-orientated band “grabbing the synths” for album three, this new direction had a real and genuine draw for Blom and foremost in her mind was cult 2010s English pop band Micachu and the Shapes. On her previous albums, Blom wrote songs on the guitar, hoping that the studio process would then allow her to live out her pop dreams through final flourishes added during the recording process. “But we were always then running out of time,” she remembers, “and they ended up as just guitar-y albums.” For Bobbie, work with synthesisers and computers began from the very beginning, and she recruited producer Dave McCracken in a co-writer role to make sure the vision was fully realised.
To immerse herself in this new way of working, Blom worked on the album in separate, intensive bursts of creativity, based around a series of non-stop five-day studio jaunts in her native Netherlands. The songs were then sent to McCraken – whose credits include Jay-Z and Kanye West – to gain a little more “clarity” and be trimmed into the tight, punchy pop hits that make up the new album.
Also on hand to help her achieve her longtime vision were a pair of collaborators that contribute to two of the album’s highlights. Blom’s partner and vocalist of fellow Dutch indie band Personal Trainer, Willem Smit, joins her on the duet ‘Kiss Me By The Candlelight’, a song lifted from an unreleased project from the pair that recalls Metronomy in its minimal, funky disco pop. Elsewhere, McCracken helped her push through initial shyness to reach out to Alex Kapranos of former Pip Blom tourmates Franz Ferdinand, who hops on the album’s giddy highlight, ‘Is This Love?’.
As well as a musical eureka moment, Bobbie is also a lyrical evolution for Blom. “I always find lyrics difficult because I’m not a native speaker,” she says. “I find it hard to spend time on them because it feels a bit forced.” For the new album, she wrote what she calls ‘guide books’ of the general themes and ideas wanting to be tackled, before teaming up with McCracken to sculpt them into songs.
Despite the huge strides taken on album three, it appears to confirm that Bobbie is only the next step in Pip Blom’s journey, and far from a final destination. “I wanna start again,” she and the band sing together to send the album off, revolutionising their sound in the most thrilling of new beginnings. So, so much more is sure to come.
Following second album Welcome Break in 2021, the band made significant live steps – a U.K. headline tour culminated in a sold-out show at London’s Islington Assembly Hall and most recently in February of this year the band played a run of sold-out gigs as part of this year’s Independent Venue Week – and they have just announced a run of U.K. headline shows in February ’24 and a number of festival appearances over the summer. Their currently confirmed dates are as follows:
05.02.24 – Castle & Falcon – BIRMINGHAM
06.02.24 – Academy 2 – LIVERPOOL
08.02.24 – Grand Social – DUBLIN
09.02.24 – Kasbah – LIMERICK
10.02.24 – Ulster Sports Club – BELFAST
12.02.24 – Oran Mor – GLASGOW
13.02.24 – Crookes Social Club – SHEFFIELD
14.02.24 – Canvas – MANCHESTER
16.02.24 – Lantern – BRISTOL
17.02.24 – Academy 2 – LEICESTER
19.02.24 – Junction 2 – CAMBRIDGE
20.02.24 – Chalk – BRIGHTON
21.02.24 – Heaven – LONDON
23.02.24 – Le Point FMR – PARIS
29.02.24 – Yuca – COLOGNE
01.03.24 – Molotow (Skybar) – HAMBURG
02.03.24 – Badehaus – BERLIN
Tickets for the U.K. February 2024 run go on general sale at 9am Friday 2nd June 2023 a HERE. Fans can also get access to the ticket pre-order from 9am Wednesday 31st May 2023 by signing up to the band’s mailing list at www.pipblom.com
Praise for last album Welcome Break:
..hard to resist – MOJO 4/5
Play loud and listen carefully – Uncut 8/10
Pip’s instinctual knack for a melody dominate this album – DIY 4/5
