Disparate musical styles souped up together can only produce two types of music - one that squarely falls on its face or one that is thoroughly enjoyable.
Luckily of Cristobal and The Sea, the latter is the case with their sophomore album Exitoca. If you don’t know what exotica is, don’t worry, nobody does. But it definitely sounds like exotica, something that could be easily put as the label on this album. Actually, it is probably easy to guess that exotica is actually a souped-up exotica.
And that is what this album really sounds like. No wonder, the band members come from all over. Lead by vocalist and guitarist Joao Seixas, originally from Portugal, they include a girl from France, a guy from Spain as well as two other members that come from Egypt and US respectively.
If such a lineup promises diverse music, Cristobal and The Sea certainly deliver. To that respect, don’t go any further than the second track “Goat Flokk”. The song starts off as early XTC, adds latter-day XTC harmonies and then starts throwing in everything but a kitchen sink, including some sort of bagpipes or other!
While the other songs on the album are as eclectic, they do actually stick to one (maybe two) musical element(s). “Totem Tennis” bring up some mean African rhythms, while “The Seed” is a page out of the book of Brazilian Tropicalia giants Os Mutantes with some added electronics for good measure.
The band also excel with some great harmonies (the mentioned “Goat Folk”, but also “Brother” and “Smadness”), and some quite nifty musicianship.
On the other hand, Cristobal and the Sea are not attempting to reinvent the musical wheel, just spread its elements around a bit. The lyrics are a bit hard to catch up but seem to be a bit of an afterthought.
In essence, that is not such a big deal. It is in no way shame to produce music that is to serve as a good clean (souped up) fun, especially if the times themselves are not that much fun themselves.
