Los Bitchos
- bizzarre
- 6 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Los Bitchos announce new album, Los Bitchos & Friends Vol 1 via GREAT! Records in association with !K7 Music & share new single and video “Holding Cell” feat. Ambrose Kenny-Smith.
London-based pan-continental band Los Bitchos today announce their new album Los Bitchos & Friends Vol 1, releasing on 13 November 2026 via GREAT! Records in association with !K7 Music. Alongside the announcement, Los Bitchos also share new single, “Holding Cell” featuring Ambrose Kenny-Smith (King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard).
Anchored by signature driving riffs and compelling vocals from Ambrose Kenny Smith, “Holding Cell” is another pristine release from Los Bitchos, the track building into a wall of wailing, score-worthy guitars and offering a fresh taste of their upcoming album following the release of “Hang Up (Pt 2)” featuring Sinkane and Adrian Quesada.
At the core of Los Bitchos has always been the idea that life – and art – can only get better if you come together and learn from each other.
Consisting of Western Australian guitarist Serra Petale, Swedish bassist Josefine Jonsson, and South London-born drummer Nic Crawshaw, the instrumental band have crafted two critically-acclaimed albums – 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin! and 2024’s Talkie Talkie – blending the influences of their home countries and so much more. Creating a rich melting pot of Cumbia, rock, pop, Latin American rhythms, Turkish psychedelia and plenty besides, it’s taken them around the world from huge tours with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Mac DeMarco, to performances from Coachella to Glastonbury’s Park Stage. At the heart of it all has been this spirit of community and celebration.
“When you meld all of these things together, you get the most amazing creative and artistic results, It's so cool to hear different influences that have really meant something to you in your life – whether you're in the depths of a Swedish winter, or in a British summer, or you're in Australia sweating your ass off. Once you share that with people and bring that to life, it's really amazing. You get something really new and it pushes you as an artist. That's awesome.”
enthuses Petale.
When it came time to look towards their third long-form project in the early stages of 2025, an idea began to emerge. Heading into their next chapter, the notion of throwing open their door even further and welcoming in a series of vocal collaborators seemed, for the first time, like the right step.
“It felt like a very natural progression. We were like, ‘Now it's the third one, how do we bring something new and interesting to our listeners?’”
recalls Jonsson.
Los Bitchos very much still consider themselves an instrumental group.
“That hasn’t really changed, in my opinion,”
Crawshaw points out.
But as they began to work on demos for what would become Los Bitchos & Friends Vol 1, they started thinking of artists that could add a new dimension to their work.
Interestingly, and fittingly for a band who have never seen vocals as a necessity, the way they approached the concept was to look at the voice as another instrument in their arsenal.
“It’s been interesting to bring forward the use of voice as a texture rather than saying, ‘This song is about my boyfriend, or my mum, or despair, or whatever it is people write about’,”
Petale laughs.
“It’s derived from a very Elizabeth Fraser from Cocteau Twins vibe, where she’s like: I don't even mind what I'm singing, it's how I'm singing it and that's what matters.”
Having spent the best part of a decade playing together and touring the world, the global cast of collaborators that Los Bitchos have signed up for …& Friends Vol 1 is a testament to the joy and inclusivity they’ve spent their career spreading. Across Vol 1’s nine tracks, former King Gizz tourmate Ambrose Kenny-Smith lends his talents to “Holding Cell”; first single “Hang Up (Pt 2)” features parts from both Black Pumas’ Adrian Quesada and genre-blurring Sudanese-American musician Sinkane; “Conexiones” brings in Peruvian-influenced New Yorkers Chicha Libre, the instrumental “Forest” was co-written by Simon Burke of The Meltdown, and “El Pençe” features vocals sung in Turkish by Kit Sebastian.
Live dates
Aug 30 - Shambala Festival - Northamptonshire, UK
Sep 10 - Great September Festival - Lodz, Poland
Sep 13 - Fiësta Futura Festival - Rotterdam-Albrandswaard, Netherlands
Ticket information here.
