Los Bitchos’ Let the Festivities Begin! is retro, wide-reaching, and as festive as the title promises. The London group’s debut, produced by Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, resembles the soundtrack to an early-’70s gap year, an amalgam of influences and instruments that runs decidedly groovy. Here, we coast on vibes and guitar licks, navigating a surf-rock odyssey by way of Argentine cumbia, Peruvian chicha, and Turkish psych. Happily, its disparate parts turn out to be as cohesive as they are giddy. And if it never amounts to much more than that, so what? Better a good trip than a navel-gazing one; better a quick romp than a slog through the cerebral.
The eddying guitar on this entirely instrumental album leads easily into daydreams. This is a record predicated on fantasy—its accompanying press release references Tarantino films, cowgirls “swaggering into a saloon,” and panthers “prowling through a desert.” Its wordlessness makes the album a screen, something on which to project yourself or your preferred alternate reality. Opener “The Link Is About to Die” is a sleek, muscular saunter: Someone’s ordering a whiskey shot in a Nudie suit. “Pista (A Fresh Start)” feels like arriving by Camaro to a small mountain village wearing sunglasses, toting a pistol, and harboring a dark secret.
These unapologetically backward-facing songs’ main ambition is to excavate a vibe. Standout “Las Panteras” alternates between trotting and running, steadily ticking cymbals and sinuous guitar toggling between restraint and effervescence. It whips itself into a frothy psychedelic frenzy and sweeps the listener up in the process. “Good to Go” lassoes a Morricone opener into ’80s synth pop, where “Tropico,” another highlight, fuses the same dancey synth with propulsive cumbia and further embellishes with Anatolian guitar. Rather than feeling forced, Los Bitchos’ stylistic marriages are balanced and delightful. Even the most unexpected element never feels tacked on.
It’s difficult to separate the music from the band’s image. Los Bitchos’ members—with ties to Sweden, Australia, Turkey, and Uruguay—all boast Jane Birkin bangs and ’60s wardrobes, and in videos like the one for “Pista,” they lean fully into the cheeky schtick of a retro B-movie. There are captions in bubbly mustard-yellow serif fonts, pinafores, berets, and menace in the woods. Where the production can feel overpolished, it’s also easy to imagine these songs given further room to roam in a live setting (this relatively sedate KEXP set features a keytar). Where the packaging leans twee, it’s also the opposite of self-serious or pretentious—Los Bitchos promise neither more nor less than a good time, as easy and palatable as the champagne of beers. And that’s just what they achieve, for better or for worse. Let the Festivities Begin! is music to dance to, to roll a joint to, to solve a decades-old mystery to, but it isn’t a masterwork that unfolds with multiple listens. It’s exactly what it promises, and that’s a party.
Buy: Rough Trade
