Mirai Music is a Los Angeles-based producer collective that delivers all kinds of music for media, artists, and productions. The core team members, Riccardo Lovatto and Jacopo Mazza, have been collaborating for the last ten years in a variety of projects and collaborations with labels, artists, and creatives all over the world. 

Let’s talk about the inception of Mirai Music and your earlier work together as a jazz quartet.  How did both of you end up touring together in Japan from your home in Italy?

R: The thing is that both of us were studying in Milan at the time, but it came to a time and a mindset where my girlfriend and I did not want to live in Milan anymore because we felt there was no certain future. So we decided to go to Japan, and the plan was to stay there for three months to just get a feeling for a foreign country and the feeling of a new culture. Then, we ended up staying for 6 years. 

Before Japan, Jacopo and I were playing together with two other amazing musicians in Italy. We had this jazz quartet and we were basically hanging out and playing every single week. So at that time, I felt like I wanted to leave and go to Japan, but I wanted to stay in touch with them. So as soon as I got to Japan, I started going around to jazz clubs and my goal was to organize a tour with them in Japan.  I started working on that and in 2014, I finally organized this tour in Japan while I was living there. So we presented this music that I wrote about Japanese Kanji and their writing system. We then recorded Shinnen, which was our first recording as the Wolf Gang 4tet. 

How did your time in Japan inspire your music? Did you find yourself being exposed to a lot of different sounds that helped you develop your own style?

R: For the first time in my life, I was in a place where I could look at my own style from the outside in; through the eyes of Japanese musicians and players. So I remember the feeling of going to my first jam session and improvising on a jazz standard or something, and I had people asking me, “where are you from?” I told them I came from Europe and they were like, “oh because you did not sound American”, and I was like “what do you mean?”.  They said, “You have something that is jazz but is not like American jazz.” And so I realized for the first time that European style, or what we call “Mediterranean jazz” style; it’s very acoustic and very melodic. This was something that I had but didn’t know. So for the first time, I tried to convey all of those feelings and ways of playing melodies into something that was around me. At that time, I was studying Japanese of course, and I started feeling that this language is very similar to music in many aspects. Each and every word has multiple sounds and multiple meanings, so I realized that I could connect music and composition with the Japanese writing system very easily. Well, not that easy, it took me six months to write down the method to translate, and at that time, I was sort of open to everything that was around me; shapes and sounds, and you know when your brain is sort of feeling out what is around you? It was an amazing time for that. I was very creative, going to jam sessions every night and in the mornings, I was writing songs. It was an amazing time. 

Then you lived in Japan for 6 years gaining inspiration and influence; where did you decide to move next?

R: After 6 years in Japan, in 2018 my girlfriend (now wife) decided to go back to Europe because it came to a place where we started thinking about the future long term. And we couldn’t see ourselves living in Japan forever. Basically, because of lifestyle, work was very good, but the lifestyle was too heavy. So we decided, let’s go back to Europe and we moved back to Munich. We wanted a big change from a big city to a city that was small so we went from 30 million people in Tokyo to 2 million in Munich. To us, it felt like going back to a small town in the mountains sort of thing. And after 2 years there, we decided to move to LA because my wife works in animation for Disney. We were like, okay, we wanted a change but Munich was too big of a change. It was a very small city and we wanted something in between, so LA came to mind. It’s a city, but it has the ocean, the sun, a lot of space, and a lot of activities. And of course, it’s an amazing city for music and animation.

With Missing Link Music, Mirai Music is known as a producer collective. After playing live performance-based music like jazz, how was the transition to production and mixing based work?

R: Jacopo has always been the kind of guy who is in the studio researching things, working on technologies, trying to understand systems, and so on. Basically, after the tour in Japan, we sort of lived separate lives in the quartet. Jacopo went more into production and mixing. 

J: I started with classical composition.  What moved me was the fact that I wanted to know how the things I have in mind could sound like with a real orchestra. I started by programming orchestral music so I could realize how effective the music could be. It’s exciting to hear a well-programmed orchestra that sounds like the things you imagine. From there, I got a job for 2 years for a video-making company and they asked me to write all the songs and all the music for their company. After I spent three years in this society, I had the chance to do it for real. Although I wasn’t able to do it in the beginning, day after day I started to dig a little deeper into the technology. And then after a few years, my first song was released as a mixing engineer. I translated from the performance aspect to the production/mixing/programming side of the music.

Obviously, Covid-19 had an effect on how you guys work together. What is your current set up and could you walk us through your workflow? 

R: At the time I was living in Munich and Jacopo was in Milan when we started our first production. We were asked to write six songs for a project and we said okay, let’s do it anyway. So, we started having a back and forth with me recording guitars and then sending stems to him. He would do something and send it back. 

J: Then we came up with a more efficient way. We started having Zoom calls and using a piece of audio software from the company Audio Movers. It streams the audio quality out of your DAW so Riccardo can listen to exactly what I’m hearing in Cubase. 

R: And through Zoom, I can see the screen so we can go through productions in real-time. Lately, I was here in Italy so we started working in person again. But to be honest with you, we are all about learning processes to make the workflow more efficient but also fun. So now that I’m here, we are still doing distant sessions because we want to get used to that because soon enough, I’ll be in LA. We don’t want to lose the energy we have because we get used to face-to-face production. So, it is something we are getting pretty good and efficient at. And this is one of the things that Mirai Music does best. Because we can do it so well when we involve a third person, we can sort of show them how to do it this way versus the other way. This workflow method allows us to work with beat-makers in Berlin or singers from the UK, New York, LA, etc. We just know how to do it and it’s always a fun thing. 

J: And I have to say, Riccardo is one of the most patient people in the world because he could watch me for hours just tweaking knobs, and he is like, okay I’m going to wait until he’s done, and maybe at the end of the process it’s just bullshit, but he’s this kinda guy who cares deeply about the process. When you work or produce and live in different places, there is always that one person who is running the DAW that feels always a sense of urgency. Because, “oh man, there is someone who is watching me, and I must hurry”, and you never get to the right point. With Riccardo, this kind of feeling doesn’t happen because he gives the best suggestions, he’s very detailed, and has a lot of patience in the process from going from point A to point B. 

R: Both of us come from studying jazz performance then composition. Those things you build through many years - there’s no urgency in a way. You can’t feel urgency because if you are at point A, and you want to get to the point of Gilad Hekselman or Julian Lage, there is no way you’re going to get there tomorrow. How can I learn the voicings of Bill Evans in one week? It’s going to take me 5 years but that’s alright, it’s a fun process. That’s what we apply to production, it’s something that we enjoy and it’s very nice for the artists when we are producing their work. When they come to the studio, they never have the feeling like, “oh we need to hurry.” It can take 1 week, 4 months, a year, we don’t care. The point is to get to the place we want to get to and it is a pretty fun process along the way. 

For people who are checking you out for the first time, give us some background about Mirai Music and some of the artists you collaborate with. What are some current projects that you are working on right now?

R: Mirai means future, so we realized that for a while, we were aiming to work with the best singer in town or whatever.  But then we realized that that place is cluttered and is full of people already; there is no space. But what we can do is scout for the next big name in the next 5 years. So, we started scouting for young singers, and we are now investing our time and skills with three of them that we selected carefully. These guys are amazing. One is 24 years old and is a very rock-oriented, cinematic sort of guy. The other two are female singers. One was on one of the top playlists on Spotify in Italy for a track that was basically just piano and voice.

J: Yeah, she recorded this track in her bedroom but the day after, it was on the cover of Spotify’s Fresh Italy playlist!

R: And she’s very good, very European, and sort of ironic. She has a lot of slang and she’s very, very nice. The other one is 19 and she is auditioning for the Sanremo Music Festival: one of the top festivals in Italy. We are producing a song with her as well. We are hoping the song goes on to actually play at the festival. But that’s the plan with our young artists, these are our investments into the future. We realized that this is what we wanted to do. To actually build something that goes into the future, not just now.

But then there are projects we are working on more intensively. One is for an Australian company; the project is called ADA Ninjaz and it’s basically the first community-driven NFT manga & anime series on the Cardano blockchain. It’s a very interesting project. We got involved as the head of music for them. We are creating the main soundtrack for the project and all kinds of music for media and promotion.

J: And another project we are working on is Doran. We produced seven songs for them and then Covid came and the project was stopped. But now, they are going back at it again so we have seven songs with them. One of the songs we have with Keith Middleton, Grammy-award winning rap artist. We have Aaron from Marcellus Collective, Levels, and American Idol. Then, we have another song with the X Factor winner for Italy. It’s a duet with another guy that is an amazing singer Riccardo who won a lot of different prizes that are very important in Italy for songwriting. We Italians have a huge tradition in songwriting.

R: With our connections, we put all these amazing singers within this project so it’s very interesting, and the marketing side will be very strong so we are hoping that this has a very big impact. Then we are producing a song for a former Universal singer, he’s one of the best singers I’ve ever heard. When he sends vocal stems, we’re just like okay, I don’t think we should do anything to it.

J: It’s always a very nice acapella recording. 

R: Yeah, just leave it that way as an acapella, that’s it. We have a single song for him and that’s going to be promoted on European radio so we’re really happy about that. Then the huge thing that happened was, that we can’t tell you the name yet, but Mirai was hired as the head of music for a game company. They offered us a 24-month deal for three games. I mean it’s going to go public soon, it’s not like Rockstar games or anybody like that, but it is a very fresh company and we are very happy about it.

J: I am very happy also because these three video games we are working on are so different. We can really experiment and go from the more classic soundtrack, in the sense of orchestral and epic, to something more futuristic. It’s very exciting for us to be able to kind of experiment in all of these different genres. And also, to get some money that we can invest into our company to make our reality bigger and do the next steps in terms of quality and network.

How do you two enjoy working on video game scoring versus working with beatmakers and singers?

R: You know we had this discussion I would say one month ago. For us, who studied composition, when we are asked to write a soundtrack we can get to that place and we like it very much. When they ask us to write a pop song, we enjoy it the same way. When they asked us to play a jazz concert, we enjoy it the same way.

J: The fact is that a lot of people say that you have to focus on doing what you do in the present moment at the best as you can. And you know we are musicians, so we are focusing on producing high-quality music that depends on the client and the artist. But the focus is to produce the best quality music we can produce. The fact is that jazz music gives us the ability to be elastic. A lot of producers and composers didn’t come from a jazz background so they used to think you can do one thing or another when in reality, a jazz background gives you the power to do whatever you want. There are chords, there are progressions, melodies, and frequencies. We got used to playing in real-time with all these elements when we were 13 years old.

R: Looking at like Quincy Jones, at one period of time, you might say, “oh this guy’s a really good pop producer”, but you don’t know his background. If you see his background he basically works in all genres. 

J: It can be very demanding because you need to know a lot of things and be able to make things happen in different genres and different styles of music. People say you need to focus on that because it’s kind of easier to be just in one path, but once you start spreading your mind and learning new things, it’s something that you cannot stop doing. It’s like a drug, it’s so freaking fun, every time I learn something new it’s like, I want more. It’s like with cheese, for me it’s the same with cheese. But after learning, I don’t feel as bad.

R: Then you would after eating cheese?

J: Yes

I know you guys are the main two in Mirai but at the same time, Mirai is an expandable team and has a “no-man does it all” philosophy - could you elaborate on that?

R: Mirai is a vision but it comes from our common and separate history of what we’ve been through over the years. Because when we say that it is expandable, if I need like a koto or a shamisen player, I have tons of friends in Tokyo who can literally go to the studio and record that for me. We have partners in Japan from the business side and music side: singers, bass players, guitar players, beat makers. I have a good friend of mine that is part of a big collective in Japan because they just made the Netflix Beastars soundtrack. If we need something, we can call them. Jacopo knows tons of people in NY and LA; Keith and Aaron but so many others. And in the same way, we are collaborating with labels in France and in Germany. We collaborate with Riverside studios in Berlin, so we have mix engineers there and we have beatmakers from wherever you name it: Milan, Munich, Berlin, Spain. Our philosophy, when we get with a client, is always to start understanding what they need. From that point, we are like, what can we do best? If we need something and we don’t know how to do it best, we just call the right people for that. And that’s been part of our success. Every single thing that we are doing is a lottery ticket. So we think of it that way. For me, it’s like okay this beat doesn’t work, let’s give it to the right beatmaker because we want this thing to be the best it can be. So literally that’s what we can bring to the game with Mirai Music. This is Mirai’s core and we can expand to get what we need to get the best out of the work for the future. 

Is there an artist that you would love to work with but haven’t yet?

J: All of them. I think one of the first records that drove me crazy and made me study all the electronic stuff was James Blake’s first record. I was blown away by this record. So much that being in a studio with him would be something really amazing for me. “I Never Learnt To Share” was the one for me. With all the voices overlapping each other and then this huge synth that comes at the end of the song. When you hear him singing live, he already has this tone in his natural voice it’s just enunciating what is already there. 

R: I’m still thinking because there is so many. To me I’m really divided by genre in my mind. And I can name one that we both love, which is Justin Bieber. Mainly due to the sound quality of his voice. I feel like you could write any melody and he’d sound great over it. It would also be fun to work with the producer Finneas.  And I would love to actually write some arrangements like the record that Beyonce made with Jay-Z with all the big band arrangements. To build something like that with a singer like her, that would be wonderful. 

Were there any records that inspired you growing up that you gravitate towards?

R: I’m a big, big D’Angelo fan. To me, I grew up listening to D’Angelo and his latest record the Black Messiah. There was one song with Brent Fischer…that recording is super nice. Of course, I grew up listening to all types of music. At the end of the day, I am a producer and songwriter. For me, Continuum by John Mayer. For me that’s one of the best recordings ever. Because the playing, the feeling, the production... there is just nothing I can say bad about the recording. I know that record by heart, solos, arrangements, keys, chord progressions because it was for me one of the best ever. 

Is there any gear that you can’t live without?

J: It will be very hard when I move, because I have my studio monitors that were built by an Italian craftsman that were specifically designed by him with his own concept. They have this amazing high-frequency detail. They have these definitions in terms of stereo spectrum, you can move the pan pot one notch and you actually see the thing shift, it’s crazy. When it comes time to start moving and before I’m able to bring all my stuff to LA, that will be a very tough period for me. Because I am getting used to this amazing quality of sound. Also with my girlfriend we have a record listening night and when you get use to this quality of listening it’s very hard to downgrade to something different. 

R: For me, we have this very nice balance where I am learning mixing day by day but not with the goal of doing it myself. I just want to have a better dialogue when I talk about things. Now after the years, Jacopo has taught me a lot and I’ve read books/watched videos. But for me, it always goes back to my origin which is having a guitar and piano at home. I know myself and I find different things on piano than I do on guitar. So when I write my song I need my guitar. On the guitar I look for melodies and for the piano I look for harmonies and voicings for an arrangement specifically. I always go back to the core of what I’m doing. We have this very nice connection where I would write something and imagine what I want as an arrangement and talk with Jacopo and he always gets me. For me, it’s acoustic guitar because I want to feel the vibrations. Nylon strings or just acoustic guitar and acoustic piano. 

J: Just being a little bit nerdier if you wish: I just bought the iZotope Ozone advanced pack. I’m excited because it’s very fresh and new. The connection between plugins and inputs on different channels makes it easy to mask between instruments or makes you visualize your mix in a whole new way. I think in terms of software, this is a step towards the future because these instruments let you focus more on the writing and the creative aspect of the music. And a lot of people think they are doing too much for you. But the fact is that they are just supporting you. And if you know them very well, they can help you achieve a better result in a faster time and help you focus more on the writing. If it works, it works, if it doesn’t work then you just have to turn it off or change it.

The last thing that’s very important to me when it comes to being a producer is understanding subtractive synthesis, which are the basics of an analog synthesizer. Knowing subtractive synthesis is one of the most important inside gears you should have. From ADSR (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release) to oscillators and wave forms. That kind of knowledge is the root to what I do as a producer. You can do it with every built-in synth, on every DAW, and get to the end result you want without having to spend thousands of dollars on gear.  

R: Talking about synthesis, we have a very interesting project that we’ve been working on. We are collaborating with a Michelin star chef and we created a soundscape for one of his new recipes. He’s gonna present the recipe at his restaurant and the client is going to have headphones on while they’re eating. This thing that we did together is very connected to the Japanese experience. We tried to translate the type of taste; sweet, bitter, and so on. We started from synthesis to try to understand what is sweet? What is bitter in music? And we went from the basic shape, through all kinds of synthesis to actually design a sound that was, for example, 20 percent bitter and 30 percent sweet, etcetera.

J: And it was fun because we did a lot of blind tests. Close your eyes, which one is for you bitter, and which one is sweet for you? We did it by using the harmonic series. We kind of tried out which amount of harmonics in the harmonic series gives us these certain kinds of feelings. From a single waveform to building up a complex sound with all the harmonics. 

R: And then from there, we sit down with the chef and discuss what’s inside the recipe from a taste point of view. There are of course all the meanings behind the ingredients. The suggestions the chef gave to us were amazing. To get where he was coming from because he is a Michelin star chef, he’s not just cooking pasta. He’s cooking emotions mixed with other connections and memories; he’s like a composer. When he’s talking about things, for example, with his recipe, “I was in Tokyo and I tasted this thing, and I mixed it with something my grandma used to make me when I was 9 years old. Then I was eating street food in Singapore and tried this, so I’m trying to mix them.” We recorded him because we couldn’t actually physically absorb all the information. We went back to the studio and went back and forth with him because he is a very authentic artist. It was a very amazing process. 

I also wanted to mention your involvement with the band Levels and their last record. How did that collaboration form?  

J: Yes, we actually went to the Grammy’s twice. The first year we just went there to connect with people and let people know Levels exist. While the 2nd year, we were actually in the category of urban contemporary. So, Keith Middleton is a voting member and Aaron is too; they brought me and Luca from Italy. We went there because we were actually competing in the urban contemporary category and performed at the Mint as well. Then we played at the Portal for the Indie Collaborative Opportunity that’s connected to the Grammy’s but ran by indie labels. It was a huge venue where Grammy winners and some Grammy-nominated artists would perform. It was awesome for Levels to be a part of that. 

It took four years to form Levels because we wanted to make it right. We have a trumpet player from Japan and a percussionist from Brazil. The Levels album is sort of a Mirai process album because we got all these people from around the world. That’s one of the qualities of the record, it’s so eclectic without losing a strong identity. 

R: We would also like to say Mirai is very happy to be working with Missing Link, that is something you should mention.

J:  It is true, we really appreciate all the things you do. You guys do a great job.

This interview is accompanied by a playlist curated by Jacopo and Riccardo that features some of their best works and biggest inspirations! Click here to listen on Spotify, and here to listen on Tidal.