Some albums capture just a single moment in time, frozen in music. But Spoken Portrait is a time-lapse, a living, breathing reflection of a decade’s worth of change, growth, and rethinking. For CIONICO, this EP is a living document. It carries with it the triumphs and breakthroughs, the weight of failures and delays.

It’s a story about the drive to do things right, respecting the past while allowing the music to move forward in unexpected yet recognizable directions. Here, time is a co-author. Every decision, whether it’s what to keep, what to discard, or what to rework, speaks to a commitment to feeling, not second-guessing. What matters is the process of trusting the music, knowing where it needs to go. In this interview, CIONICO shares their thoughts and feelings, talking about how to balance independence with responsibility, creative control with collective input. It’s a moment of closing one chapter and preparing to open another.

photo by S I R – K E N C E L L I

Your journey began in 2010, and Spoken Portrait marks the culmination of a ten-year evolution, infused with your experiences, culture, and personal discoveries. Yet, the longer something is created, the greater the risk of losing the original vision. How did you manage to preserve—or perhaps even rethink—the energy that was born at the very beginning of your path?

The key word here is OBSESSION  I think!  to quote one of my fav lyrics by Rush, for the song “THE MISSION” – “obsession has to have action”. It was impossible for me to forget about the goal I had in mind since day one: getting the songs down, in English as they were initially conceived with the quality of production that was kick ass. I think We – as a team – accomplished that.

This was a balancing act of keeping what we thought would work and throwing out what didn’t. To do that It started with listening and feeling. Not THINKING! Feeling. It was in the DOING that we found what worked and what didn’t. For example on the song “Miss You”. There were many ambient elements and loops that were not included in the Spanish version on our first album. This was a production decision made by the producer of that first album. I always thought that – even though the Spanish version is a good one – the English version carried a weight that was a bit more CIONICO. It was darker. So we had to decide as a team what to keep from the Spanish version and what to throw away – we threw the final vocal line away and replaced it with a guitar solo that sounded almost Pink Floyish / Marillionesque! All these situations required sitting down, listening and feeling and not thinking TOO MUCH as it gets in the way of the tune. The only thing I thought about was the song will tell you where it should go and let it flow. Sometimes it took some time before it flowed naturally.

It’s hard not to notice how you talk about time—how it transforms music, how it shapes the creative process itself. It seems like time has become another instrument for you, alongside drums and melody. When you look at Spoken Portrait, what has time added to this project? And was it also something you had to overcome?

Oh totally! I was listening to the tunes after BOB [St. John] (our producer)  sent us the final mix and felt like – even though I wrote those tunes at one point in life – I am not quite that same person anymore. The writing has changed. Time added hours, days, months and years to this project before everything became an important part of the final puzzle. There were many pieces that needed to align for it to come out the way it did. This thing did not happen overnight! and yes there was a lot to overcome like: set backs, changes in staff, mourning, moving to another country. All that takes time and time was given time (forcefully) for all those things to occur so the EP could be completed.

Starting your own label is first and foremost about control, as well as a statement that you want to speak on your own terms, without conforming to the rules of external systems. With the release of Spoken Portrait through CIONICO R3CORDS, you’ve firmly established yourselves as independent artists.  Was this step more about liberation or responsibility? And how has this process changed your perspective on the industry?

Yes you are correct! In a nutshell that’s what we want. We want to talk freely about things. Things that occur in everybody’s life – love, joy, frustration, anger, hope etc, but we want to do this our own way, not in a way that somebody else says or vision should be. Well! In regards to the second part of your question, we hear that the industry has changed a lot (which is true) and we hear that everything being released now sounds the same, we also hear that things are not fair for some of the parties involved in the business relation and many other things! We just want to do music first – not to say we do not care about the business – we do! But nowadays mainstream is not what mainstream was 20 or 30 years ago. We are aware of that and we don’t care. We want to do things how we feel them and see them and CIONICO R3CORDS allows us to do and be whatever we want artistically speaking.

Spoken Portrait has taken longer than you anticipated. Sometimes delays can be frustrating, but they can also lead to refinement and unexpected inspiration. Looking back, how do you feel about the time it took to complete this EP, and are there elements of the final product that wouldn’t have been there without those delays?

It was frustrating at times. The EP had already been planned out and we knew how and what to change before we went into it however- some things took way longer that they should have taken and well….it is what it is.  I decided not to dwell too much on what and how it was vs. making sure it doesn’t happen again as we do not have eternity to do this. The good and important part is that the EP is 100% finished, mixed, mastered, artwork all that it’s In the can we are just doing minor adjustments. Oh and we like how it came out!

photo by CIONICO

With Spoken Portrait, did you find yourselves leaning more into the lyrical side of storytelling, or did the arrangements evolve in new directions to complement the English versions of the tracks?

The lyrics were done even before we recorded the Spanish versions. Only minor changes here and there. Some melodies were changed or even taken out and replaced with guitars – like at the end of “Miss you”. As I mentioned before, this tune had a melodic line on Vocals in the Spanish version that we all agreed should be out and we decided to put a guitar solo instead. So to answer your question I think it’s a bit of both.

Each member of CIONICO brings a unique energy to the band, from Leo’s vocals to Oscar’s lyrics. How did the dynamic between you all influence the process of creating ‘Spoken Portrait,’ and were there moments where someone’s input shifted the direction of a track?

As mentioned before, the instrument tracks were all recorded previously for the most part. Those were the same tracks done for the 1^st album. They were just remixed and added more GRIT. The only thing we had to record was vocals. So the CIONICO vibe is still there…with a new ingredient….English vocals done by our new singer Leo. 

The title of the EP, Spoken Portrait, suggests a conversation where music becomes the paint, creating parts of a larger picture. How do you see this portrait? Is it a self-portrait reflecting your thoughts and feelings, or does it lean more towards the collective, representing your work as a group?

Let’s start with the album cover. It’s a face done with many pieces of each of the member’s faces. It is not my face or Wade’s or Gerry’s only. If you look closely you will see that it is OUR face. Spoken portrait represents a chapter that needed closure. The 1^st album had taken too long to complete (12 years or so) This EP it’s a “sub project” in the entire CIONICO journey. We are closing this chapter by releasing songs that were written in English. These songs were not finished due to causes that did not allow the process to be completed. These songs are part of a bigger project that we will start working on in the future. The EP it’s a bridge between that 1^st album and our next which is in the works – we have finished the drum tracks already.

Was there a specific point during the recording process when someone in the band suggested an idea or made a contribution that drastically changed the course of a track? Could you share an example of a song that became something entirely different because of this?

Yes, “Miss You” is the song that had the most dramatic changes. The end of the closing vocal melody was taken out. Leo had mentioned that he wasn’t into it so he did a guitar solo which fit nicely so we kept it.  I brought the ambient and loops from the original demo. We added more guitars in “Higher” which is the opening track to the EP. The flow of the EP came from all of us and BOB.

Working on an album can feel like a dialogue with yourself—sometimes uplifting, sometimes painful. Do you feel that Spoken Portrait became a way to deal with something you’ve been carrying within you for a long time?

Yes. That dialog happened when the 1^st album was being written. How should songs go? What should they talk about? What sounds to choose?. Some songs came speaking in Spanish right off the bat and some in English. Others had to learn English and some had to learn Spanish – some are still learning as we speak hahaha – that took work and it still does. As I mentioned before, Spoken Portrait is that bridge between all the changes that occurred while the 1^st album was being written and recorded and the next views, challenges and experiences to come.

How did the name CIONICO come about? What does it mean to you, and why did you choose it for your band?  

Oh boy! This was a never ending search! I tried many – and I mean – many names. For the most part they were all taken by other bands already or were taken by other businesses. I don’t quite remember the names at this point as this happened in 2011. Basically I just mixed several words or parts of words that sounded good. – like “Kwyjibo“. This was following Bowie’s steps with the “cut-up technique” related to William S. Burroughs. So One thing led to another and CIONICO came along. This is like a person’s full name. What is CIONICO? It’s a band – nothing else! a band! like when you say Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Mogwai, ewok or Coca Cola . You just think of what they are as there is no other meaning. CIONICO it’s a band…in every sense of the word! I wanted something unique that was only THAT and nothing else. You will remember it after you repeat it and see it more than once or twice or three times…or a thousand times haha ! It is pronounced: see-ó-neh-coe – or if you want the latin accent then it’s cee-ó-nee-co.

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