Instituto Mexicano del Sonido

Instituto Mexicano del Sonido (IMS) is a one-man type of project, with lots of after-hour editions and additions at a home computer. During the day, Camilo Lara is the well-known industry man and savvy record label guy who works for major companies in Mexico City. By night, he finds magic in a huge record collection and dreams of creating the perfect background party music. As a result, an IMS album is an experimental journey to an imaginary Mexico where cumbia and cha-cha blend with down- and up-tempo beats and broken-hearted radio-soap-style quotes like this one: “That day he woke up to the news that his wife had left him/The intention of going after her didn’t even cross his mind/He let her go without asking nothing at all, neither with whom, nor to where.” That song is humorously called “Love Song to My Future Girlfriend.” It is, perhaps, a synthesis of the obsessive work of cutting and pasting that took Lara’s nightlife away for the past few years, though he sounds like he had some fun, too.