Bizarre Activities with the Pipettes

I know David Lynch likes music. And he seems to have quite a soft spot for the sound and aesthetic of the 1950's - be it "Blue Velvet," Roy Orbison, rockabilly, or girl groups. Though he has not used their music in any of his films, I imagine he might (like I) hold a soft spot for the Pipettes - a fabulous, modern-day girl group.

The Pipettes came into my world roughly two years back when I discovered their debut, We Are The Pipettes, a near-flawless, wall-of-sound product of tight harmonies and catchy choruses. At the time I wrote:

If David Lynch movies tell us anything, it is that the sounds of the past have a way of showing us the darkness of our present. The Pipettes' debut, We Are the Pipettes, captures this Lynch-like quality of pop music, mixing the early sixties aesthetic with a punk rock/D.I.Y. attitude.... The Pipettes debut is timeless, complex and gorgeous. Sticking to an aesthetic, but not compromising their attitude, the Pipettes manage to pay homage to and subvert the girl group sound at the same time.

I've tried to keep up with what the group has been up to since, and last week some major changes were announced via their website:

The Pipettes have two new members, Ani and Anna. We are demoing up 20-25 new songs, with an eye to recording a second album in the Summer. We want to tell you all about them, but we’re very much head-down working on new material at the moment.

This means that RiotBecki and Rosay have left to pursue other musical pursuits (which will be brilliant when they emerge), we wish them all the best, we’re all still great friends and news on their pursuits will be closely supported by us.

People may be confused by such a drastic change in line-up but please rest assured - if we were to be an imitation of ourselves we would stop. Plus the Pipettes has more members come and go than major labels have A&R men, it's just another day in the office for us (plus we’ve got to go one better than the Sugababes).

The post then links to the group's "manifesto," which sheds little light on the situation:

So let's draw on the magic and the energy of this period that we might almost think of as a golden age: the Spector years, the Brill building, Joe Meek's Triumph recordings in England and beyond that Motown, Stax, Studio One....

Let us make this our starting point and start here to tell our story, from whence we shall move both backwards and forwards (in historical terms, the two are never easy to separate anyway)....

Let us continue to expand our temporal and spatial borders in this fashion and let us do so using the tools at hand. Like a bricoleur we shall construct our histories from what we already have around us, what is available to us immediately and what we already know: guitars, drums, percussion, a Philicorda organ, a saxophone, our own voices....

Let's see what new histories we can write together.

Still feeling just a tad lost, I had to research the group's history a little further. The group was formed in 2003 by Moster Bobby, who also plays guitar for the Pipettes' all-male backing band, The Cassettes. For Monster Bobby, and his many collaborators, the Pipettes seem to be much more a collective project in music, fashion, and pop culture than simply a group. In fact, many different faces have come through the lead vocal territory, and with this exit of two, none of the original girls remain. Alas, the Pipettes are a bit more brand than band - thus this new shakeup probably won't take away from the music, though it may make you curious about whose in the background pulling the strings.