While recording Sex + Food in Mexico City, Nielson was caught out in the 2017 Puebla Earthquake. In the destruction and chaos that pursued, he spent the night in a local park with his band members. Despite this, he recalls with fondness that they were struggling to think of the right lyric for a song when the earthquake hit and "then, when we were in the park trying to crash out, somebody shouted, 'Viva la Mexico!' … I was like, ‘That’s the missing line!’”. The album was also recorded in Reykjavík, Seoul, Auckland and Hanoi, alongside their fifth album "IC-01 Hanoi", which grew as a secondary instrumental project.