Cristobal and the Sea stream debut EP ‘Peach Bells’ in full

Cristobal and the Sea cross seas and clash heads in their rhythmic, cultured blast of noise. On debut EP ‘Peach Bells’, the Alejandro Romero-led outfit bring a frenzied take to conventional songwriting, shoving sweet, everyday chords into weird extremes.

Ahead of its 3rd November release (out 8th December physically) on City Slang, DIY’s got the first play of ‘Peach Bells’. It’s a work that couples jagged guitar lines with flutes, passionate cries with unrelenting drum solos. Somehow, despite the blink-and-you-missed-it, melting pot approach, their maddening combinations meld into something oddly soothing. Madness has its place in the psyche, as they so clearly address.

“The first talks regarding the recording of the EP came around April this year, over lunch with Christof, head of City Slang. We agreed from the very beginning that we would try and explore the more experimental part of our sound, without compromising the pop vocal harmonies,” the band tell DIY.

“When talks shifted to what producer we might want, we suggested working with Rusty [Santos] from the very beginning, since we were really interested in some of the artists he had worked with (i.e. Animal Collective, Ariel Pink, DJ Rashad).

“There was never any purposely thought concept behind the EP. We had played most of the songs for a long time by then, so we had a clear idea of the songs we wanted in the EP. Once we knew Rusty was on board, we wanted him to be an integral part of the band, almost as a 5th member. In a way, we gave him freedom to influence our sound. We wanted it to be fun and also to have fun, while recording it, which is what we did, hoping that this fun would be contagious to the people listening to it. It was really important to us that the end product was something we would enjoy listening to ourselves, and that that would be the only way we would get people engaging with our music.”

Listen in full to Cristobal and the Sea’s debut EP on DIY below. They launch the EP with a headline show at London’s Waiting Room, 9th December.