Los Bitchos announce 2022 Workman's gig to mark debut album release

Following live shows as special guests of Mac DeMarco, standout performances at Green Man, Latitude and a sold out show at London’s Moth Club last week, Los Bitchos will tour the UK & Ireland in February 2022.

The pan-continental female instrumental four-piece are slated to perform a Dublin show at the Workman's Club on 22nd February 2022. London-based Los Bitchos have also announced the release of their much anticipated debut album, Let The Festivities Begin!, on 4th February 2022 via City Slang Records.

The album was produced by Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand in Gallery Studios, London - the recording space owned by Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music.

To coincide with the announcement, the band also share their new single and video, 'Las Panteras', a disco-funk prowler that sounds like it’s beamed in from another planet. Washes of synth and delirious guitar lines are punctuated with the thrust of stonewashed '80s rock, bongos, cowbells and cabasa. The accompanying video was directed by Tom Mitchell.

“We wanted to show the mystery of the song combined with sassy dance moves," the band’s Augustina Ruiz said of the video. "Inspirations for the video are Kill Bill, Scooby Doo & Spice Girls’s ‘Wannabe’ video. The huge battle climax at the end is a Bram Stoker Dracula-inspired fight which will leave you hanging for what’s in store next, between Las Panteras and the girls. A tacky ‘70s show in which the band must solve the mystery of Las Panteras, taking a break now and then to bust out some sassy choreographed dance sequences to keep their spirits up! To be continued...”

Los Bitchos are very possibly your new favourite party band, with instrumental voyages that evoke scenes of swaggering into a desert saloon bar and setting alight to a row of flaming sambucas. They’re the girl gang you definitely wouldn’t mind being stuck on a tour bus with.

Serra Petale (guitar), Agustina Ruiz (keytar), Josefine Jonsson (bass) and Nic Crawshaw (drums) hail from different parts of the world but met via all-night house parties, or through friends. Their unique sound binds them together, taking in a retro-futuristic blend of Peruvian chicha, Argentine cumbia, Turkish psych and surf guitars. It’s not unlike if Khruangbin – their spiritual cousins, who are fans of Los Bitchos – spent a night getting slammed on cheap mezcal at the Shacklewell Arms in Dalston.

“I wanted to sound like Van Halen and Cocteau Twins – but from Turkey,” says multi-instrumentalist Serra, who was born herself in Western Australia and takes a lot of inspiration from her mother’s '70s Anatolian rock records. The rest of the band bring influences from their upbringings, too. Agustina comes from Uruguay and the group fell in love with her Latin-American music collection.

Then there’s Josefine from Sweden – “who brings a touch of out-of-control pop,” her bandmates joke – and Nic from south London, who drummed in various punk bands before rounding off Los Bitchos. “Coming from all these different places,” says Serra, “it means we’re not stuck in one genre and we can rip up the rulebook a bit when it comes to our influences.”

Los Bitchos finished recording the album right before the pandemic hit. They kept momentum going during lockdown with their radio show, Planet Bitchos, on esteemed internet station Worldwide FM.

Let The Festivities Begin! is a maximal, technicolour strut of an album of hallucinatory surf-exotica, with a celebratory title, something you might say as you toast with your shot glass, signalling the end of the pandemic era and ushering in a bright new dawn of wild abandon. “It’s about being together and having a really good time,” say Los Bitchos.

Pre-order Let The Festivities Begin! here and check out the tracklist below:

1. The Link is About To Die
2. I Enjoy it
3. Pista (Fresh Start)
4. FFS
5. Tropico
6. Las Panteras
7. Good to Go!
8. Change of Heart
9. Tripping at a Party
10. Try the circle!
11. Lindsay Goes to Mykonos