Comes on Cosmic Sparkle Vinyl LP – Alternative cover art + Signed Poster. Limited Edition.
Los Bitchos Are in Full Party Mode on Talkie Talkie
The London foursome apply a high-gloss pop sheen to their second LP, locking into taught grooves and using them as springboards for playing off one another. Los Bitchos Are in Full Party Mode on Talkie Talkie. There’s a good chance that a group of musicians who call their instrumental album Talkie Talkie have a smart-ass streak. Ladies and gentlemen, Los Bitchos! The London-based quartet comprising members from across the globe is back, this time with a more expansive approach.
Guitarist Serra Petale, synth/keytarist Agustina Ruiz, bassist Josefine Jonsson and drummer Nic Crawshaw double down on their fondness for the 1980s with a dozen songs that scroll by like the soundtrack to an action-comedy movie that exists only in their minds. These songs move beyond the cumbia-rooted approach the foursome took on their 2022 album in favor of a broader musical palette, on tracks packed with updated takes on the sound of the ’80s: effects-treated guitars, sleek synthesizers and a high-gloss pop sheen that saturates the whole album.
Without lyrics to fall back on, the music has to stand on its own, and it mostly does here. At the core of each song on Talkie Talkie is a taut groove that Los Bitchos lock into, and use as a springboard to play off each other. Though these songs are instrumentals, there’s no improvisational jamming: they’re tight pop tunes constructed around musical themes that vary from track to track. Petale delivers coiled riffs on “Talkie Talkie, Charlie Charlie” before she lets loose with crunchy, compressed lead licks. Her guitar parts intertwine with Ruiz’s synths on the upbeat dance-floor slammer “Kiki, You Complete Me” while Jonsson throws around a bassline that pops and shimmies.
Los Bitchos revisit cumbia on “1K!,” where Crawshaw anchors the guacharaca rhythm while her bandmates add sinewy, hypnotic flourishes. Throughout, there are echoes of sounds that will remind anyone versed in ’80s pop of something familiar from back in the day. All the same, Talkie Talkie isn’t a nostalgia trip so much as a latter-day party record with a retro vibe that is at once sincere and tongue-in-cheek: sincere in that these four musicians really do love ’80s pop culture, and tongue-in-cheek because they’re not taking it, or themselves, too seriously.
And of course, there’s the flipside of having no lyrics: there are no distractions. Apart from the occasional “Hey!” (or Petale suggesting “Suck on that one, bitch!” on the swiggly, wah-wah-saturated album opener “Hi!”), there’s nothing here but music to get lost in. It’s as if every track on Talkie Talkie is the perfect accompaniment for the inevitable action-comedy scene set in a disco: It’s too loud to talk, and everybody’s having a good time while the protagonists are hard at work (source paste.com)
