Pip Blom at Gorilla
Fergal Kinney
23 year old Pip Blom grew up in a Dutch family running a pioneering music blog from the heart of Amsterdam. When she was 16, a catalytic moment arrived in the form of a Parquet Courts gig. Inspired by the New York band – their energy, their wit – Blom was moved to start writing songs. “When I first released four songs, back in 2016” Blom told Vice, “there was no band. I always wanted to start one and make music together with other people, but I wasn’t able to find anyone who wanted to join me. So I wrote songs and recorded them at home.”
Debut album Boat was released earlier this year and was one of 2019’s most intriguing indie releases – there’s no shortage of slightly meta, grungey pop-fuzz, but none with quite as much charm and humour as Blom.
There’s no shortage of slightly meta, grungy pop-fuzz, but none with quite as much charm and humour as Pip Blom.
There’s quite a few parallels between what Pip Blom does and a lot of the more interesting, lo-fi guitar pop coming out of South London – no wonder, then, that independent audiences in the UK have quickly taken Blom to their collective heart. To be sure, Pip Blom may not be the mostly wildly innovative group but Blom’s songwriting is heavy on the personality – take ‘Bedhead’, an esoteric ode to lethargy, that finds catharsis in overcoming idleness and millennial burnout. ‘Daddy Issues’, meanwhile, is charming garage punk in the style of the Modern Lovers. Pip Blom’s shows have been steadily rising in capacity over the last year on her frequent visits to Manchester, so catch her now before the venues get even bigger.
