Miguel Ramirez
“I’ll have never-heard-before club mixes of ALMA,” Giuseppe Ottaviani on his upcoming Aussie tour.
Giuseppe Ottaviani has proven to be one of the most consistent music producers in the game on numerous occasions and he’ll be reaching our shores next week for his Live 2.0 ALMA Album Tour, hitting Melbourne on November 11 at Studio 3, Crown and Sydney on November 12 at Pacha Sydney.
His 3 hour extended set will feature many tracks from his new album ALMA and an exciting live performance with Tim Hilberts, “one of the most beautiful recognisable voices from the album,” Giuseppe says.
We had a chat with the musical genius ahead of his Aussie tour to talk all things ALMA – read the full interview below and grab tix here: Melbourne | Sydney
The last time we talked, you were in the final stage of completing your brand new artist album, ALMA. The album has now been released and has had a great reaction from fans across the globe! How does the excitement for this album compare to excitement over your past work?
It’s hard to compare, there’s always a big buzz around new material especially when we’re talking about albums which is where I have the most fun.
One thing is sure, people never know exactly what to expect from my albums as I tend to vary a lot within the trance fields. But that’s the thing that keeps people talking about it enhancing the overall excitement. I really wanted to surprise fans with new material and there’s been a lot of talking especially when I came up with that ‘Slow Emotion’ concept some time ago alongside other snippets that I’ve been posting every once in a while. It’s been a very excited two years journey that ended in the best way possible.
I’m 100% happy with it and fans seem to love ‘ALMA’.
You’ve dedicated ‘Alma’ to your children – what inspired that?
The idea behind this album was to bring the enthusiasm, emotions and spirit of a child into the older age. I’ve been inspired by watching my two little children growing and noticed how music can actually mark a specific moment of their lives. This brought me back to when I was a little kid and remembered all different type of music I was listening to.
It’s hard to explain since it’s a personal feeling but there are many melodies and sounds that are strongly related to specific moments of my childhood. Especially with the instrumental tracks like ‘Primavera’ or ‘Alma’ or ‘Aurora’, if I close my eyes I can actually see and “smell” those moments, yes it’s a quite personal album this time.
The title ALMA not only means ‘soul’ in English (translated from Spanish) but above all it’s the amalgamation of the first two letters of my children’s names Alessandro & Matteto (AlMa) and that’s why it’s dedicated to them.
Was there anything you knew you wanted to do differently musically this time around, to separate it and make this album its own thing?
Well I always want to do different things and experiment new sounds but as I said before I tend to do that within the trance field to keep the entire album coherent. In fact for different things I don’t mean to make one trance song, one techno, one EDM and so on that you’ll end up with being all over the place. I like to do different things walking through all the different shades of trance music, which is what I love, and eventually discover something totally new like Slow Emotion, or Primavera.
I usually say, wearing a new dress won’t change who you are but it’ll make you look fresh and interesting every time. This is what I try to do with my music.
Do you feel that an album gives you the best way to tell your story, rather than releasing singles?
The reason why I love to make albums is very simple. I’m a musician and I like different things. When you release a single you tend to be a bit more consistent with your typical sound but I believe this will kill my creativity. An album allows me to do many different things and literally unleash my creativity so that people can discover and enjoy a wider range of music and I can feel free to make what I like the most.
You’ve collaborated with some amazing artists on this album – when selecting either a vocalist or a featuring artist, how do you decide who you will work with?
I collaborated with many vocalists but not so many artists, in fact Paul van Dyk is the only one. The reason is because I wanted to keep this album a bit more personal so I needed to be completely in control with the music in order to express what I had in mind.
Choosing the voices is quite a big challenge as I need to figure out the type of voice I’m looking for first and then the theme and lyrics which play a big role too. For this album I made all demos with just a piano and some strings, then I thought at the type of voice a certain demo would require and sent it out to the artists. I was lucky enough and almost every demo perfectly matched the singer I was asking for, so really happy about the final result.
What was the first track off the album that got the ball rolling? How long do you think the whole album process took?
It took just over two years and the very first demo I made I think it was ‘Primavera’. But the whole album has been made in just over a month, as I said I made every demo by a piano and strings and all 15 ideas where born very quickly. Then turning the demos into a full production was a different story.
What do you hope your fans get out of ‘Alma’?
I really hope they’ll realise that music really has a soul and can actually tell stories from long time ago, my childhood in this case. Hope these melodies from ALMA will last in their minds for a long time, just like music from my favourite artists are stuck in my head since ever.
We’re thrilled to see you back in Australia this November for your highly anticipated ‘LIVE 2.0 Alma Aussie Tour’ – how excited are you to be playing live? What can fans expect from your extended sets?
It’s going to be a “double treatment” this time. First of all because I’ll bring my Live 2.0 to the club and secondly because I’ll have never-heard-before club mixes of ‘ALMA’ plus and an exciting live performance with Tim Hilberts, one of the most beautiful recognisable voices from the album.
What do you love most about visiting Australia?
Australians.
Do you have any final words for all your die-hard fans in Australia?
It’s going to be my birthday. Bring a cake, it’ll be fun 🙂
We wish you loads of success on your new album and tour!
Thank you guys for the interview.
Find Melbourne tickets here.
Find Sydney tickets here.
Get ALMA here.
