Cristobal and the Sea originated in 2012 when four Loughborough University students—Alejandro Romero on bass and vocals, João Seixas on guitar, Leïla Séguin on flute, and Joshua Oldershaw on drums—assembled the London-based psychedelic folk-rock group. Their decision to form the multicultural quartet stemmed in part from a desire to counter the campus emphasis on sports and laddish behavior, and the project took shape during informal jam sessions in the flat shared by the three male members. That same blend of backgrounds soon informed a hybrid style drawing on bossa nova, jazz, psych-folk, dub, Afrobeat, and touches of goth rock.
After relocating to the capital in 2014, the band submitted a demo that attracted the attention of Berlin indie City Slang, which promptly signed them and issued their first EP, Peach Bells. The following year brought the full-length Sugar Now, produced by Rusty Santos of Animal Collective; although reviewers responded favorably, the album did not enter the charts.
For the 2017 follow-up Exitoca, the group expanded to a quintet with the addition of American keyboardist, percussionist, and filmmaker Elliott Arndt, who also created the album’s artwork and the video for its lead single, “Goat Flokk.” Recorded by Bosnian producer Yehan Jehan in a studio the band constructed outside Paris, the album reflected their unease, as immigrants, with the political climate surrounding Britain’s approaching departure from the European Union. In response, Exitoca advocated retreat into a lush, psychedelic haven modeled on the Latin-inflected exotica records of the 1950s whose spirit it invoked in its title.
