Pip Blom have today announced details of their third album, Bobbie, and shared the track “Is This Love?”, featuring Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos. Released on October 20 on Heavenly Recordings, the band previously shared “Tiger” from the forthcoming album. The band will be opening for Blur in Amsterdam later this year.

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.”

Bobbie was 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 colorful and vivacious pop shines through across the 12 tracks.

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 grueling years of touring, the new album sees her and the band take a delightful left turn into thumping, carefree synth pop.

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 tour mates Franz Ferdinand, who hops on the album’s “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.

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.

Pre-order Bobbie by Pip Blom HERE