At the core of Los Bitchos has always been the idea that life – and art – can only get better if you come together and learn from each other.

Consisting of Western Australian guitarist Serra Petale, Swedish bassist Josefine Jonsson, and South London-born drummer Nic Crawshaw, the instrumental band have crafted two critically-acclaimed albums – 2022’s Let The Festivities Begin! and 2024’s Talkie Talkie – blending the influences of their home countries and so much more. Creating a rich melting pot of Cumbia, rock, pop, Latin American rhythms, Turkish psychedelia and plenty besides, it’s taken them around the world from huge tours with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Mac DeMarco, to performances from Coachella to Glastonbury’s Park Stage. At the heart of it all has been this spirit of community and celebration.

“When you meld all of these things together, you get the most amazing creative and artistic results,” enthuses Petale. “It's so cool to hear different influences that have really meant something to you in your life – whether you're in the depths of a Swedish winter, or in a British summer, or you're in Australia sweating your ass off. Once you share that with people and bring that to life, it's really amazing. You get something really new and it pushes you as an artist. That's awesome.”

When it came time to look towards their third long-form project in the early stages of 2025, an idea began to emerge. Heading into their next chapter, the notion of throwing open their door even further and welcoming in a series of vocal collaborators seemed, for the first time, like the right step. “It felt like a very natural progression. We were like, ‘Now it's the third one, how do we bring something new and interesting to our listeners?’” recalls Jonsson. Los Bitchos very much still consider themselves an instrumental group. “That hasn’t really changed, in my opinion,” Crawshaw points out. But as they began to work on demos for what would become Los Bitchos & Friends Vol 1, they started thinking of artists that could add a new dimension to their work.

Interestingly, and fittingly for a band who’ve never seen vocals as a necessity, the way they approached the concept was to look at the voice as another instrument in their arsenal. “It’s been interesting to bring forward the use of voice as a texture rather than saying, ‘This song is about my boyfriend, or my mum, or despair, or whatever it is people write about’,” Petale laughs. “It’s derived from a very Elizabeth Fraser from Cocteau Twins vibe, where she’s like: I don't even mind what I'm singing, it's how I'm singing it and that's what matters.”

Having spent the best part of a decade playing together and touring the world, the global cast of collaborators that Los Bitchos have signed up for …& Friends Vol 1 is a testament to the joy and inclusivity they’ve spent their career spreading. Across Vol 1’s nine tracks, former King Gizz tourmate Ambrose Kenny-Smith lends his talents to ‘Holding Cell’; ‘Hang Up (Pt 2)’ features parts from both Black Pumas’ Adrian Quesada and genre-blurring Sudanese-American musician Sinkane; ‘Conexiones’ brings in Peruvian-influenced New Yorkers Chicha Libre, the instrumental ‘Forest’ was co-written by Simon Burke of The Meltdown, and ‘El Pençe’ features vocals sung in Turkish by Kit Sebastian.

The band aren’t deliberately trying to make a political statement, but in a fractured world that’s increasingly being pulled apart by division, the mere presence of an album like this feels like a beacon of positivity. “With what we do as a band, it’s already inherent. We're all from different places and this is exactly what would be lacking in a nationalist framework. This just wouldn't exist,” says Crawshaw. Jonsson agrees: “It's a celebration. There's nothing negative. It's all focused on the beauty of when things come together; of reaching out and sharing things and welcoming people into your world.”

The results speak for themselves. With Petale taking on co-production duties for the first time, demoing the tracks in her home studio before taking them to 5db Studios in West London, it finds Los Bitchos stronger and more confident than ever as a core unit. With that has come the ability to let go and open up their process to their new teammates. Making …& Friends Vol 1, the band would take a demo as far as it could go and then send to the collaborator to put their stamp on the track. “We sent Adrian Quesada [what would become ‘Hang Up (Pt 2)’], which was a very fully-formed version of a Bitchos song, and he basically picked it apart and sent a completely different version back,” Jonsson recalls. “That was the first song we’d done for the record, and we weren’t prepared for that, but we realised we needed to stay open-minded to whatever could happen.”

“You have to be really willing to be completely flexible, and trust and really embrace that people are going to bring something different and that's the whole point of collaborating,” nods Crawshaw. “Because otherwise, we might as well just write another Los Bitchos record.”

On ‘Hang Up (Pt 2)’, Quesada and Sinkane kick off the album, injecting William Onyeabor-esque funk rhythms and falsetto vocals, and creating an insatiable earworm that already sounds like a hit. ‘Holding Cell’ sees Kenny-Smith working with the band to bring to life one of the project’s most guitar-driven, heavy rock moments as he speaks of “Devil and angel / Heaven and hell”. “That track was a gift, if I'm really honest. It came so quickly,” Petale recalls. “All of [King Gizzard] are so genuine, they are the best of men. I got goosebumps when I heard what Ambrose did with that song.”

Kit Sebastian’s performance had a particular resonance for Petale, whose mother is also Turkish. “A lot of Turkish music is very heartfelt and very dramatic. So you've got this beautiful, buttery voice singing about the hand that’s controlling you,” she enthuses. Meanwhile, ‘Conexiones’ speaks of connection and internationalism, with incredible percussion and synths that sound almost like sitars. Plus, for the OG Bitchos fans, there are a handful of instrumental tracks still – not least ‘Walk In Salem’, a driving groove of a song that “gets you into such a trance state when you’re playing it,” says Crawshaw. “There’s such a darkness and determination to that song.”

A project born from open-mindedness and a willingness to let everything in, it feels correct that Los Bitchos & Friends stands as the band’s most technicolour work yet. In their own words, it feels like “more than an album”. They conclude: “It's a celebration of shared humanity, showing that when cultures meet, they don't clash – they dance.”

TRACKLIST :

1 Hang Up (Pt 2) (feat. Adrian Quesada & Sinkane) 02:58

2. El Pençe (feat. Kit Sebastian)

3. Walk In Salem

4. Holding Cell (feat. Ambrose Kenny-Smith) 02:59 video

5. Cross

6. Forest

7. Sunset

8. Conexiones (feat. Chicha Libre) 03:53 video

9. Next Selection (Prelude)