Gio Lobato on Crafting the Sound of Mexico

Gio Lobato is a commercial music and sound producer currently working as a senior producer, lead engineer, and head of IT at duotone audio group. He grew up in Denver, CO and is a graduate of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University. 

Gio has been vital to the duotone team for the last 12 years, bringing a creative curiosity and deep sense of authenticity to his work. For a new collaboration with Lalo Tequila, he put together a composition deeply inspired by the sounds of Mexico – combining a variety of styles, instruments, and sounds to create an eclectic pastiche ode to the beauty and noise of the country... Even going so far as to create all the sound design using only Mexican instruments. Gio is a Chicano, living in Mexico City, and married into a large Mexican family, so the project was heavily rooted in threads of his cultural heritage and connection.

With the intention of taking a deep dive into understanding the significance of Gio’s work, duotone audio asked five leading Latino creatives to contribute questions to a conversation about his personal process and the role that culture played in this project. 

Brenda Morrison Fell, head of production at David the Agency> How can your personal journey and your roots in Mexican culture be seen/appreciated in this spot?

Gio> Whenever I’m working on a project like this, I think my personal journey is all over it… I was always raised to be super proud of my culture and so those experiences, that music I heard, the way we talk, it’s deeply infused whenever we get this kind of brief. I think the biggest thing you can hear from my Colorado/New Mexico/Denver Chicano culture in this piece is the norteño influence… Banda and northern music is really a part of the cultural fabric up there and so while it represents the north of Mexico, it also represents (as I like to call it…) el 'muy norte'.

Nicky Lorenzo, freelance ECD> The LALO work is about blending tradition with modernity, can you explain how the music mirrors that?

Gio> The truth is, in a lot of ways Mexican culture (IMHO), on both sides of the border is really about centring tradition but embracing the new. You see this in food, where traditional indigenous food blends seamlessly over time with colonial influences. And it’s something that comes naturally within the culture and the approach… We just can’t stop being Mexican, no matter how hard anyone tries to make us.

With music it’s the same… It’s only natural that the advent of digital music has changed the face of Mexican music, allowing people to create new blends of Latin styles with electronic, hip hop, and more… In this piece I was just holding a mirror to that part of our culture, the way we work with what we have… The samples I collected and re-worked for the piece, the traditional cumbia programmed with drum machine elements… Everything comes from that place of continuing tradition through whatever means necessary.

Luis Ribeiro, managing partner at LOBO> How do you balance your creative vision with the specific needs and requirements of a client or project?

Gio> I’ve always been lucky to have a great team around me. Peter Nashel and Ross Hopman have always been 100% behind me when I have a crazy idea for a super thematic composition like this. They let me have the runway to do something weird, and when it works, it really works, but also help guide me to think of what’s best for the project/client. It helps that I’m also a producer, so I get to kinda step back and look at my music more critically.

And of course we have a great team working all the time at my side. Eugenio Gonzalez is my right hand tech guy who can do laybacks when I’m ignoring Slacks making bird sounds with clay whistles. Dana Hom brings me back to earth to figure out the budget. Brian, Brad, and Jordan all give me inspiration and feedback when I get lost in the sauce. And the rest of the awesome staff keeps things running smoothly in ways that we often don’t see but are so important.

So yeah… A great crew of people who are at the top of their game helps me be creative AND support my clients. It’s a good place to be.

Antonio Navas, creative director at Lalo Tequila> Has living in Mexico brought out your Latinidad? Are you now mixing it with contemporary sounds? Living in New York was a melting pot of sounds.

Gio> I’ve certainly been exposed to a lot more music here than I was before, so many different and unique styles.

I come from a very unique and specific Chicano culture in New Mexico and Colorado… It shares a lot of similarities, and has a ton of differences from the culture here. So it’s exposed me to a side of my culture that I never was before, and I’m very privileged to have that opportunity… It’s incredibly eye opening and inspiring, and it makes me feel at once more complete, and like there’s so much more to learn and live on both sides of the border. It gives me a new appreciation for the things we do and say back home in Denver, and how those are in conversation not only with our past, but also with our future, which are the newer immigrants from Mexico… We truly are blending in new and beautiful ways.

Mexico is a place that will open itself to you, if you open yourself to it, and there’s so much to discover. It’s filled to the brim with tons of wonderful people, music, art, and food. You can go one state over and be in a totally different culture, but still feel at home and accepted. There is no one culture, one way of being, one way of talking. And people flock here from all over the world to live and feel that energy, the controlled and beautiful chaos and noise. The deep love of tradition, and the ease with which it’s broken. It’s a place that’s unmatched in the world in my humble opinion.

Antonio Navas> Now that you are fully immersed in Mexican culture, how do you see the music and art being influenced by young musicians and artists?

Gio> The world is a lot smaller now… It’s really cool to see how Latin music has become such a huge force through the internet, but it’s also really cool to see how that has influenced the music here. Mexican reggaeton is taking off, you have Colombian cumbia sonidera taking over as a huge sound. You have artists from Puerto Rico like Bad Bunny trying their hand at Norteño. You have artists like Ed Maverick writing literal modern classics, and Silvana Estrada taking the torch from Natalia Lafourcade and pushing modern traditional music in a whole new direction.

There’s so much more than that, and influences coming from everywhere in the world, and it’s amazing to see the talented Mexican artists here putting it all in the molcajete and making something both super Mexican and super worldly at once. It’s really a special place.

Lucas Bongioanni, ECD/creative lead at the Community> What Mexican artist came to mind when you started working on this piece?

Gio> SO MANY! Obviously there are huge influences from a ton of great artists. I think some of the big ones are Pedro Infante, Vicente Fernandez, Antonio Aguilar, and of course newer artists like Mexican Institute of Sound, Los Master Plus, Son Rompe Pera, Karen y Los Remedios, Amor Muere, and so many more.

Antonio Navas> Are you exploring any more traditional instruments? 

Gio> Yeah for sure. One of my best friends out here is Colombian/Venezuelan, and he lent me his Venezuelan cuatro recently and I fell in love. What’s really cool is how closely related yet so different it is from the one you might find in Son Jarocho music from Veracruz, the Requinto Jarocho. It really amazed me how he was able to teach me about the different tunings, yet still put the instrument in conversation with both cultures.

I also have the good habit of buying any new affordable instrument I find while traveling, and I’ve collected a ton of great stuff from shakers to whistles to everything in between. That definitely helped with the sound design.

Brenda Morrison Fell> Can you tell us a bit more about what it was like only working with Mexican instruments for the sound design? 

Gio> It was difficult! It’s one of those challenges that you don’t often get from a client, but with a client like Lalo, and especially Antonio Navas and Paul Opperman (both great clients whom we’ve worked with for years)... There’s always this amazing impulse to do something that both breaks the mould but also nods to tradition, and feels truly authentic. I remember after the first sound design pass they called me and said, “it sounds too much like expected sound design… What if you did the sound design only using Mexican instruments?” And I remember thinking, “That’s gonna be REALLY hard”, but saying out loud, “Yeah, let me try it”!

But when I got to work it was super fun… Taking shakers, whistles and drums, and processing them to work as sound design but also retain their recognisability. It was super fun and it really adds a lot to the piece, and creates a totally different mood. I’m always so grateful for clients that challenge us in ways that elevate the films we are working on, and this is one of those amazing examples.

Lucas Bongioanni> It’s a beautiful piece. Does making this kind of music inspire you to write more at a personal level? 

Gio> For sure. I've done other films with a similar focus on Mexican sounds and vibes, and every time I do, our EP at duotone audio post Greg Tiefenbrun has said… “You know, I would listen to a whole album of you doing this stuff.” I guess he got another track for the record with this one…

I would certainly love to do a project like that, and have been considering it for a while. But right now in the very little free time I have, I’m more focused on my losiento project, which combines folk, electronica, Latin music, and bilingual lyrics into something that’s a very Gio form of expression. I’ve been chipping away at an EP about my life growing up as a Chicano in Denver, which I will release whenever I have it ready (maybe never, who knows).

Brenda Morrison Fell> What was the biggest challenge when it came down to the process? And now that it is complete, what makes you the proudest about this one?

Gio> I think the biggest challenge was trying to cram all of these references in, without one overwhelming the other, and having it all tell a coherent story. Obviously this piece is quite vignette heavy, but there’s definitely a story of the journey from the home, throughout Mexico and through friendship and celebration. Creating space and moments for those important scenes was difficult, but so worth it.

In the end I think what makes me the proudest is that many people of different ethnicities and life experiences seem to like this music, but there are so many people who will discover and get so much out of it that not everyone can see. It’s for everyone but it’s also for the culture.

Luis Ribeiro> What advice would you give to aspiring Latino composers looking to break into the field?

Gio> Shoot me an email, there needs to be more of us!

But seriously. Advertising is a weird and wonderful place for musicians. My best advice is to rip a bunch of spots off of YouTube, strip the VO, and write music to them… Learn the craft by doing. Do it 50 times with 50 styles, and 50 genres. By the end you will be a little bit better, and have a great portfolio to send to people.

I would also say, you don’t have to centre your identity in what you do, but don’t be afraid of it. There was a time in my life when I thought that maybe it would be better if I wasn’t so centred in my culture, if I assimilated for lack of a better word. But I quickly realised that that left a massive part of me empty.

The quote is maybe a bit overused, but America Ferrera’s 'My identity is my superpower' is one of my favourites. I feel that way too. My history, my family's history, everything I am is so powerful and so cool, and I’m just glad I get to share it with people when I can. And it’s obvious that leaning into that (when appropriate) results in music that connects so much more often than not.