bar italia

bar italia announce new album 'Some Like It Hot', via-matador, and release single & video 'Fundraiser'.

Some Like It Hot is a 1959 film starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon about a group of rogue musicians on the adventure path. It is funny, sexy, rambunctious and evergreen – a showcase of a triple-threat cast at full-throttle. Some Like It Hot is also the new album by London three-piece bar italia, out October 17th on Matador, and certain parallels are perhaps not accidental. It pulses with romance, intrigue, self-discovery and rapture over lustful rockers, spellbinding folk pop, punch-drunk ballads and undefinable moments that sneak up on you like a burst of 5pm sunshine.

The record is the culmination of the joint world of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton, three singer-songwriters who have transcended their underground roots to embrace a bold, widescreen horizon.

New single ‘Fundraiser’, a kinetic headrush that is bar italia at their most hook-laced and exhilarating, arrives today with a video starring actor Matt King (Peep Show).

Following a sold-out show at 93 Feet East in London and recent single and album track ‘Cowbella’ which went on to the BBC 6 Music playlist, bar italia will accompany the forthcoming LP with UK, European and North American tour dates, including a sold-out London album release show at The Dome on October 18th.

'Cowbella’ sees kiss-and-tell gossip devolves into obsession: "Did she run or did she stay / whats it gonna take for you to say? How was her mother? Did she have a father? Did she keep a lover between the lines?" Unfolding over a wiry, shapeshifting rocker that arrives at a skywards coda of ghostly vocals, it’s a multi-pronged anthem that only bar italia could conjure.

Elsewhere on the album, ‘Marble Arch’ sees a playful shuffle like a midday stroll through Itchycoo Park is undercut with Cristante’s relaxed lilt: "I dreamt you hung yourself / And my little sister too / in desperation”. Fenton muses about “rain in london town / it reflects all the feelings of people around”. We are all walking around some part of a city trapped in our own thoughts, it seems to say. But the power of bar italia is where their voices join in a chorus of devastating poignancy, as with Jezmi and Nina’s: “What you doing in my head again / You dont belong here, you never did”.

The synergy of this three-way blunt rotation is embedded in the trio’s DNA. Cristante brings a studied actors’ sensibility to vocals ranging from honeyed (the aforementioned ‘Marble Arch’) to hell-bent and possessed (‘rooster’). Fehmi ranges from airy, brooding baritone (‘Lioness’) to mic-chewing megaphone histrionics (‘omni shambles’). Fenton, a wispy tenor, can veer between mystical melodicism and soaring blue-eyed soul within the same 8 bars (‘Plastered’).

The cultivation of their sound, from early homespun recordings like hand drawn sketches (the band presented an exhibition of their drawings in 2023) into the ceiling-wide brush strokes of Some Like It Hot, was chiselled via relentless writing and touring. When bar italia emerged in 2023 from an underground following to release two critically acclaimed albums on Matador only several months apart – the poised Tracey Denim and the grand The Twits – they were a shy, eye-contact-avoiding band, starting sets in darkness and just as soon disappearing backstage. They spent the next two years traversing the globe, with headline performances from Istanbul to Tokyo, sold-out multi-night stints in New York and Los Angeles, and festivals including Corona Capital, Glastonbury and Coachella. With over 160 shows worldwide across 2023-2024, they dispelled any mystique by becoming an exhibitionist and muscular five-piece that gives multiple encores – equally comfortable at festival mosh-pit incitement and moments of pin-drop intimacy.

Some Like It Hot is telling of this journey: a collection of rock songs voraciously embracing the main stage. The lightning choruses of ‘omni shambles’ and ‘Eyepatch’ show a band who have mastered melding their idiosyncrasies into tightly coiled pop songs. A pining for tangibility abounds:

“just show me the face that you've been trying to hide”,

Fenton opines on the Balkan-tinged waltz of ‘bad reputation’. Other songs surrender to abandon wholesale:

“I was lost to the world from the moment we kissed”, Fenton sings on ‘rooster’, while on the 12-string new wave majesty of ‘Lioness’,

Fehmi states,

“You have no idea what I can do for you when I’m in this mood”.

bar italia have married their serious and heartfelt subject matter with a joy in showmanship. These are songs that twist their quirks into huge choruses, and find elevation in tension, playing with self-identity, emotion and performance until the lines blur. That 1959 Hollywood classic from which the album takes its name ends with the immortal line: “Well, nobody’s perfect.” This, however, comes pretty close.

Picture by Rankin

LIVE DATES

August 22 – Malaga, Spain – Canela Party Festival

October 18 – London, UK – The Dome (SOLD OUT) *

October 22 – Milan, Italy – Santeria

October 23 – Barcelona, Spain – La 2 de Apolo

October 24 – Madrid, Spain – Sala Mon

October 28 – Paris, France – La Maroquinerie *

October 29 – Liege, Belgium – Reflektor *

October 30 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Toekomstmuziek *

November 6 – Los Angeles, US – The Bellwether #

November 8 – San Francisco, US – The Regency Ballroom #

November 10 – Portland, US – Aladdin Theatre #

November 11 – Seattle, US – Neumos #

November 12 – Vancouver, CA – Hollywood Theatre #

November 14 – Chicago, US – Thalia Hall $

November 15 – Cleveland, US – Beachland Ballroom $

November 16 – Columbus, US – Ace of Cups *

November 18 – Pittsburgh, US – Spirit Hall *

November 19 – Washington, US – Black Cat *

November 21 – Philadelphia, US – Warehouse on Watts *

November 22 – Brooklyn, US – Brooklyn Paramount $

November 24 – Boston, US – Paradise Rock Club $

November 25 – Montreal, CA – Club Soda $

November 27 – Toronto, CA – The Concert Hall $

November 28 – Buffalo, US – Nietzche's $

November 29 – Woodstock, US – Bearsville Theatre $

* xmal

# Voyeur

$ Lifeguard

Tickets for the tour are available HERE.