bar italia – Tracey Denim
The air of mystery that once surrounded bar italia might have evaporated, but with songs like these, they were never going to stay a secret for long
Since forming in 2020, bar italia, have released a steady stream of music. Throughout that time the group have ruthlessly preserved their anonymity; rarely granting interviews or sharing images of themselves online.
However, that’s all about to change following the release of Tracey Denim, the band’s first release for Matador Records. The trio – composed of musician and artist Nina Cristante (aka NINA), Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton – combine the rough naivety of C86-era indie music with washed-out grunge guitars and shoegaze buildups to create an album of hypnagogic pop songs.
From the ghostly mid-tempo beauty of tracks like Missus Morality and my kiss era, to lead single Nurse!, bar italia demonstrate how to be complex and seductive, without ever feeling pretentious. Key to this is their overlapping vocals which meld vulnerable and intimate harmonies with overdriven guitars and languid basslines to create a sound that seems to exist in a liminal space between waking and sleeping. The air of mystery that once surrounded the band might have evaporated, but with songs like these bar italia were never going to stay a secret for long.
Listen to: punkt, best in show, yes i have eaten so many lemons yes i am so bitte