Brighten The Corners Presents Dutch indie rock band Pip Blom on Thursday 25th July at The Baths with support from Vanity Fairy.
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Time: 7.30pm - 11pm
Venue: The Baths, Ipswich
Tickets: £15+bf
Supports: Vanity Fairy
Age Restrictions: 14+ (14- 15s must be accompanied by an adult)Stage Times:
19:30-Doors
20:30-21:00 - Vanity Fairy
21:30-finish - Pip Blom
23:00 - Live Music Curfew
23:30 - Bar CloseAccessibility: There is a ramp entrance into the venue and the bar / venue is all on one floor. There is also an accessible toilet on the same floor. For further information, please email info@brightenthecorners.co.uk so we can make your visit as comfortable as possible.
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For her third album, ‘Bobbie’, Dutch singer-songwriter Pip Blom decided to rip it up and start again. After making her name as one of the brightest indie rock singers around through two albums – 2019 debut ‘Boat’ and 2021 follow-up ‘Welcome Break’ – and a lauded live show honed over gruelling years of touring, the new album sees her 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. Foremost in her mind was cult 2010s English pop band Micachu and the Shapes, led by the effervescent Mica Levi.
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.
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?’. “He made such a funky chorus,” Blom beams of her collaborator, and ‘Is This Love?’ is the album’s purest shot at pop gold, seeing two indie artists live out their shimmering pop star dreams. It’s an utter delight, with Blom and Kapranos pushing each other higher and higher.