Who we are - what we do
Founded in 1998, in Tokyo, Japan by a collective of international musicians headed by Claude Girard, InnersmileMusic set out to record a broad repertoire of world music in tune with japanese lifestyle which brought about several relaxing melodies arranged by cuban director Pedro Rivero Ruíz whose taste for both classical and popular music was the perfect blend to bring about stress release to japanese urban life and cuban rythm to help them enjoy it. After the extensive experience of Curujey's first three album, Innersmile was ready for the challenge of recording with a symphonic, and a Christmas repertoire was chosen to serve the purpose of spirituality and originality. Though the first releases were all with Curujey, Girard felt the urge to blend in some of his previous hardcore influences and the more ethnic music of Curujey.
During the studio sessions of Curujey in Cuba, the producer was fortunate to meet and record several other cuban artists like the Quinteto Rebelde and the Speteto Star. While recording an afro-cuban yoruba based religious formation called Folklorico de Manzanillo, Girard came up with the idea of mixing some of their traditional yoruba repertoire with electronica, a style he had never experimented with. He presented this idea to japanese programmer Yuzo Asa who agreed to colaborate, and the result is a release entitled "The Melting Pots" by the group ISYNC. This project also reflected some of Girard's hardcore influences, notably on his first album entitled One, released in 1994. In 2010, he gathers most musicians he had recorded with in Manzanillo Cuba to produce CUBAMANOS.
Innersmile latest project is RUMBA, a musical show that pays tribute to the incredible influence of afro-Cuban music to the western world, hence presenting a repertoire that the public have related since Chano Pozo met Dizzy Gillespie in the 1940's and Mambo became the music king of cabarets around the world in the 1950's.
