Los Bitchos – Let The Festivities Begin! review

Ok, so in introducing Let The Festivities Begin! it’s unavoidable to talk about an indie musician finding by chance an obscure branch of South American folk music and forming a new band dedicated to playing just instrumentals while throwing back as much tequila as possible. This may admittedly have you posting a meh face emoji, but it’s the truth and there’s nothing that can be done about that.

The drummer in question is Serra Petale, who left Kid Wave to form Los Bitchos, a quartet whose music is loosely based on Cumbia, a branch of Colombian roots music which became popular in the 1960’s. Embossed with flavours garnered from her and the other member’s cosmopolitan backgrounds, some punk attitude and a dedication to the good times, the cocktail they serve up traverses continents, styles and moods, all with a raucous sensibility.

Produced by Franz Ferdinand‘s Alex Kapranos – himself apparently a huge Cumbia afficianado – on tracks like I Enjoy It, Tropico, FFS and Pista (Fresh Start) the pan-global feast of ideas transcend any notions of pretense; here for a good time but probably not a long one, put Los Bitchos on party your invite list, before everyone does.

You can read a full review here.