bar italia, the London based three-piece of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton, present their second full length of 2023, The Twits, six months after their acclaimed Matador debut, Tracey Denim. Recorded over eight weeks in a makeshift home studio in Mallorca, Spain with Marta Salogni (Bjork, Romy, black midi), the 13 track record finds bar italia‘s economical yet evocative songcraft taking raucous, mystic, unkempt, occasionally sinister, and wholly committed turns. Songs like “my little tony”, with its in-the-red riff and excitable hooks, the cathartic four-on-the-floor of “world’s greatest emoter” and the festival tent psychedelia of “Hi-fiver” need little in the way of exposition — these are exhilarating rock songs, if wayward and strange. Listen to the former track, below:

While Tracey Denim was notable for its compact 2-3 minute compositions, horizontal and open-ended tracks on The Twits ebb and flow, moving from reptilian dive-bar soloing to a palpitating two-note piano coda. Closer “bibs” is a rare instance where all three can be heard in unison, as a procession of ghostly chords and lacerating feedback bookends the group’s most adventurous and rich set to date. Catch bar italia on tour in Montréal, Dec 6th (Sala Rossa), Toronto, Dec 8th (Velvet Underground), and Vancouver, April 9th (Hollywood Theatre). The Twits arrives on Standard Black and Limited Edition Indie Silver Vinyl, as well as CD.