Exitoca by Cristobal And The Sea

Cristobal and the Sea – Exitoca

‘Exitoca’ is a trip into an alternative reality where humans care for each other and the environment, value sensual experiences and dance their troubles away.

The title is a reference to the genre known as Exotica, which represented the escapist dreams of a generation of American salary-men and housewives in the 50s and 60s. Their desire was to move to an uncomplicated Pacific paradise; something that captured their own creative needs rather than the actual physical environment they found themselves in. Cristobal and the Sea's ‘Exitoca’ is the attempt to free that dreamer movement from the grips of it’s privileged background and reclaim it for those who need it most now.

For Cristobal and the Sea, expatriates from Portugal, Spain, France, Egypt & USA, now based in London, the idea of Exotica is more than just an escapist plot to avoid workaday drollery; it is a proposed evacuation from the toxic mires of Brexit; the very notion that threatens the place they now call home. Their current political situation endangers access to their very art and lifestyle, which is commonly the pressure required for musicians to produce great work.

‘Exitoca’ espouses Cristobal and the Sea's principle tenet: they call everyone to embrace mystical otherness and accept the virtues of foreignness.

This philosophy is narrated no greater than between the words and music of ‘Goat Flokk’ where longing, searching lyrics are mixed with both Brazilian Tropicalia-like speed and rhythm with a healthy Syrian-pop breakdown. The fusion of sounds and styles proves that harmony is very much possible when cultures are mixed.

Recorded in a self-made studio in the outskirts of Paris with Yehan Jehan, the lush surroundings, combined with Jehan’s creative impetus, offered Cristobal a greater richness to their recording process, which can be heard on the flotsamming and jetsamming exotic interludes between tracks, but none more distinctly than on ‘Steal My Phone’.

The ecstatic quality of the band, whose personal manifesto calls for warmth, nakedness and polygamy (as opposed to the cold and sexless Brexit reality), is on display in ‘The Seed.’ This track brings images of lolling natural bodies, flesh and excitement, again with the production and arrangements in full force. Play it loud during your next late night foray with your best friends and you'll see what they mean.

Cristobal and the Sea's Balearic roots are inseparable from their essence. The bossa anthem ‘Uma Voz’ is a reach out to everyone in their situation, a passionate and all-encompassing hand to everyone facing the same nationless situation. If only Theresa May's quote “If you think you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere” were sifted through a Buddhist filter, it would be the kernel of wisdom. Oh well, Socrates said, “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world” and the band invites you to decide whom you would trust more.

The London-based union of Alejandro ‚Ale’ Romero (bass, vocals, Spain), João Seixas (guitar, vocals, Portgual), Leïla Séguin (flute, vocals, Corsica/France) and Elliott Arndt (drums, UK) harnesses an altogether fluid, rhythmic and exquisitely melodic energy as colourful and enigmatic as their band name, forged from different strands of DNA, primarily bossa-nova, Afro-pop and Western folk and rock