I was born under the name of Joaquín López Ibarra in 1998
In Northern México, home of 40 degrees summers and ridiculously short winters, also the highest taxes that a Mexican has to pay. I think the only natural thing i like from this unforgiving land is the existence of possums, they're cute. Oh, and our mountains, whenever i go outside or look through the window i'm always greeted by the vast greens of Cerro de Las Mitras, one of our beloved mountains, it reminds me the beauty of nature within this city.

Both of my parents used to work, then dad escalated through the company which allowed mom to dedicate herself to be a full time mom, it was great, she raised me and my brother (I'm the little one ;P) to be so humane yet ambitious people, i really can't get how such a lovely and luminous woman gave life to a punk and a goth.
I just can't understand it... But she always encouraged us to be ourselves, no matter what, just don't harm anyone. We lived together as a happy middle class family until my brother had it's own and dad was fired from the company since he was too expensive to have. He had to work in another city since no other company wanted to pay him that much. Now it's only mom and i, we frequently get all together though and i'm grateful for those moments.

My uniqueness, a highly homophobic society at that time, abusive teachers and the corrupt system of mexican public schools were fertile soil for all of my problems, i grew secluded from other kids since teachers told them to not speak to me or they would become just like me - I wrote a song about that. Boys played football, girls played with dolls and i played with stuffed animals, my young self was really argument-driven when playing. 

It was no place for a feminine boy playing with stuffed animals, at 7 years old dad gift me a little book called "Egyptian Mythology for Kids" i became deeply enthralled by it's topics and i thought other kids would like to hear about it... It was a mess! There you have the little psycho plushie weirdo now fanatic of Anubis and Osiris and don't let me start after i watched Xena: Warrior Princess and i got into Greek mythology... A mess!

So there you have it, no other kids wanted to talk about the things i was passionate about, or don't wanted to talk to me at all because it was dangerous for them, the ones who did though, was to bully me. At 6th grade i found my first Oasis of happinnes, my parents didn't knew the impact that videogame was going to have on their little weird son: Little Big Planet.

I disconnected myself from reality for that time, it's soundtrack, it's goddamn soundtrack, the creative freedom i got, that game had the best in-built level creator of that time and also allowed you to put premade music on them, with several channels of sound but most importantly... I got to play with other boys! During that time my online friendships became sacred for me, they all where from USA so this forced me to practice my English with them, it was easy thanks to the short text chat it had, i also played with a Larousse translation dictionary by my side and Google translate on my PSP.

And then it came Little Big Planet 2... Mother f

The thing is that game had an IN BUILT MUSIC COMPOSING TOOL it even had some of its soundtrack made on it so you could open the music box and see how it was made, i started to do my own music but after some time i felt limited by it's instruments, i needed more, i wanted more... 

Then remembered, my older brother had bought this program called FlStudio, he wanted to start using it for his band. I can't tell why he didn't continued but oh when i found out it worked like Little Big Planet 2's music sequencer... And that i could download REAL recorded instruments for it... Unlimited Power.

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I tell you how heavily argument-driven was my playtime with plushies, so now that i finally had the tools i started to do simple music tracks for each of the places i imagined with the help of my little cousin, who was my playmate. I would let my tracks play on my PSP over and over as background themes while we played, it felt awesome to feel our worlds and stories were alive like in our favorite videogames.

From happy music for a dog's taco restaurant to an ominous piano track for a villain's domains, my creativity was unbound, i felt free, alive, i was able to create feelings, to set the mood for a non-existent place, it was amazing for me.

Then as i grew up i made my own fantasy stories, my own places, so doing music for them was natural to me. Started Animation college where there was finally a lot of people with interests like mine, i would make stories for our projects and at the last semesters i got commisioned to do music for their works, it was an awesome time where my talent started to shine. After college i got into many independent animation/videogame projects which unfortunately didn't see the light of day, they weren't funded or people just moved on to do other things since most artistic jobs here are poorly paid and highly worked so they don't really had time for indie side projects.

The Mexican animation industry is young, taking its firsts steps so the best animation companies here didn't even had vacancies for composers and the small studios i went to, neither, they mostly think that stock music is okay, there's no need for a "composer" Joy.

I had enough

So at the middle of 2020 i started my own career as a solo musician releasing my first single, i did everything, some weeks later it turned out that mom needed a major surgery, it got complicated and well, we went through three rough months of recovery, the surgical treatment ended completely by the start of november "Im fine, do your things:)" she told me one day, she was all back to normal again! and didn't need me anymore so i finally put on my headphones again and did the one idea i had circling my mind.

My single flopped, but hey! i was totally a stranger with no label support, the good thing is that from the few i had, i received some good critics, it was the same by all people from different places of the world "Your music reminds me of Alice" "It sounds like Tim Burton's Alice!" Alice, Alice, even my second single so i thought of this idea i had on one of my trips to college:
What about if i make music for the Alice Asylum's concept art? 

 

It was the last trip to get my mom's medicines from the hospital's pharmacy, it's the Mexican social healthcare, the line for the store was so big that it was cramped in the entire lounge, i was there within a crowd, a crowd during the peak of the COVID pandemic,I took my phone out and recorded. In me there was fear, relief, happiness, wonder and the noise of a crowd.

It was perfect for my favorite piece of concept art where Alice is in a crowded city of giant shadows, it was said on the wiki that she faces there the pessimistic idea of how her new lonely life would be without her family, everything clicked, and i started composing my first song of my best YouTube series at the moment, every sad thought of my inner child during mom's process fueled that song.

It had a nice number of views and the comments by the community meant a lot to me, i even got one from one of the official Alice crew mates! Two songs later well... During 2021 i ended up producing a song for Alice's art director Omri Koresh and some of his projects too.

It's been amazing! After so many closed doors my work is finally seen, i have learned a lot and i am more than enough confident to aim for bigger things.

I Hope i make it  💜