Some Like It Hot arrived October 17, 2025, through Matador Records. Twelve tracks. Bar italia has been releasing records since 2022, and this one commits most fully to the logic the three of them have been building across four years of work.
Nina Cristante, Sam Fenton, and Jezmi Tarik Fehmi formed bar italia in London in 2019. The band name stays lowercase, a minor but consistent signal about how they manage public presentation. The press photography for Some Like It Hot was shot by Rankin, one of the most commercially prominent photographers working in the UK. That combination, studied carelessness with the brand alongside a high-profile photographer behind the camera, captures how bar italia operates: the appearance of not caring, executed with precision.
The album title borrows from Billy Wilder's 1959 film starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. In the film, two men disguise themselves as women to escape the mob, join an all female jazz band, and survive through escalating absurdity until the final line lands. Bar italia did not make a comedy. What they made is a record where discomfort and groove occupy the same moment without either one winning.
Fundraiser, Cowbella, Rooster: Three Singles Built the Case Before the Record Arrived
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Bar italia released three singles before Some Like It Hot: "Fundraiser," "Cowbella," and "Rooster." None of them were designed to win new listeners quickly. "Cowbella" arrived with a video directed by Aidan Pontarini, Ben Schumacher, and Luke Schumacher, described by the label as arthouse pantomime and backstage meltdown, dragging the fashion world through a warped lens. "Rooster" came with an unhinged live performance video directed by Simon Mercer alongside the band. Both videos treat the promotional cycle as an extension of the artistic project rather than a separate marketing operation.
The label description of "Cowbella" noted sinister guitar elements alongside captivating grooves. That phrase captures what bar italia does: something pleasant and something threatening occupying the same beat without either one resolving the other. The three pre-release singles built the case that Some Like It Hot would sustain that for a full twelve tracks, which is a longer commitment to sustained unease than anything the band had attempted before.
The Tracklist Works Like a Sentence That Refuses to Close
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Twelve tracks: Fundraiser, Marble Arch, bad reputation, Cowbella, I Make My Own Dust, Plastered, Rooster, the lady vanishes, Lioness, omni shambles, Eyepatch, Some Like It Hot. The capitalization varies and the variation is deliberate. "bad reputation" and "the lady vanishes" and "omni shambles" are lowercase while others are not. The title track closes the record. The listener reaches the album name as a conclusion rather than a starting point, which changes the relationship between the title and what it means.
"I Make My Own Dust" sits at the center of the sequence at track six. It is not positioned as a thesis statement. Bar italia does not do thesis statements. What the tracklist builds is accumulation: each track adds to a total that only registers fully at the end, when the album folds back into its own title and the borrowed phrase from a 1959 film becomes something else entirely.
Matador Records and What the Institutional Commitment Actually Means
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Bar italia signed to Matador Records, whose roster includes Snail Mail, Pavement, Interpol, and Mdou Moctar. Matador does not sign acts expecting immediate commercial returns. The label operates on the assumption that some records need time and that the artist should not be required to shrink the work to accelerate that process. Some Like It Hot is not a record that shrinks.
The world tour makes the commitment concrete. An album released October 17, 2025, with dates running through March 2026 across five continents requires sustained institutional backing before anyone outside the band and label knows how the record will land. Matador booked the tour on the strength of the record alone. That is significant. Not every label does that for a band whose previous record was not a commercial breakout.
The Guitar Work Is Structural, Not Decorative
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Bar italia is a guitar band in the way some photography is technically realist: the medium is legible, but the emphasis is on what the medium does under pressure. The sinister guitar elements in "Cowbella" do not announce themselves with a tempo pull and a shift to minor. They arrive inside the groove, as a quality of the sound's texture rather than a departure from it. The rhythm stays. The unease lives inside the rhythm rather than interrupting it.
That is harder to execute than the obvious version. Placing discomfort inside a groove rather than against it requires the band to maintain two things simultaneously without either one collapsing into the other. Some Like It Hot sustains that technique across all twelve tracks. The grooves are consistent. The discomfort is consistent. Neither resolves the other, and that refusal to resolve is what makes the record work.
The Tour Started With an Album Release Show and Kept Going
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The Some Like It Hot world tour began October 18, 2025, in London, one day after release. Spain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands followed that month. The United States leg opened in November 2025. Australia and New Zealand closed the year. Two Japan dates opened January 2026. European dates ran through February and March 2026. That is roughly five months of touring across five continents for a record that makes no attempt to convert the casual listener.
Bands that book this much touring for demanding material typically do so because the live show makes arguments the record leaves open. Bar italia has built a reputation for performances that translate the studio strangeness without softening it. The scale of the Some Like It Hot tour is a bet on that translation, placed before the audience had a chance to weigh in. That confidence before reception is bar italia's consistent position.
Some Like It Hot is the most fully realized record bar italia has made. The world tour confirmed the commitment before the audience arrived. That sequencing is deliberate, and it is the right call for a band that has never needed permission to proceed.
