Bar Italia: “Nurse!”
The London band bar italia seemingly emerged into a Matador signing and a flurry of publicity off of little more than some spare, wind-swept post-punk and a sense of carefully tailored mystique. But when you’re conjuring a potent enough mood, that’s all you need. On “Nurse!,” their narcotically arresting new single, the guitar tones ring out of some liminal space where the fumes of Joy Division and the Cure mingle with echoes of early King Krule, while the million-mile remove of the vocals —“A mask covered your eyes and you move like crazy to your favorite song,” someone sneers—dimly summon Thurston Moore. If, at any point, a music scene revolved around looking cool in a trench coat and smoking, it’s a fair bet that these Dean Blunt collaborators have it on their mood board. The vibe is very much Post-Punk Band As Art Installation, and on “Nurse!,” the angles and lighting are immaculate.