T.H.E Interview – Giuseppe Ottaviani

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Giuseppe Ottaviani Interview

Characterising trance music’s energy in both approach and output, Italy’s Giuseppe Ottaviani has long been recognised as one of the genre’s most respected and prolific merchants.

Giuseppe has long favoured the production-based approach to his electronic music career. Drawing on seemingly limitless reserves of inspiration & passion its been catalysed by his drive to create and experiment. “Evolver” can easily be termed as a prime product of his experimentation and production. We had the opportunity to sit down with the legend and speak about his album and a lot more! Read on!

Shivani – Hi Giuseppe, it’s great to be speaking to you! Firstly, congratulations on Evolver, which will be out later this month. How has the experience been like working on the album?

Giuseppe Ottaviani – It’s been a great journey and a very long process if you think about how Evolver was born. In fact, this is not a studio album where you normally sit down and start making music in order to fill in a 78 minutes CD but Evolver has been created the opposite way.

Each track was born live on stage thanks to my Live 2.0 setup which was launched over 3 years ago. Since then I’ve been making ideas and playing live demos and simply saving the good ones and throw away the not so good ones. In autumn last year, I realized I had about 22 good demos and I thought it was a good idea to turn them all into full studio production and release them as an album. 9 months later we’re going to see the release of Evolver.

Shivani – You recently also played at Luminosity beach festival. How was the festival for you this year?

Giuseppe Ottaviani – Lumi was above my expectations, as usual. They keep getting better and better every year and it’s really a highlight of the season for me every time I play there. Loved the international crowd coming from all over the world and showing their flags, it’s really a perfect example of how music unites us all.

Shivani – “8k” and “Colors” have already received such a good response till date and we can’t wait to see what the rest of the album has to offer. Which track from the unreleased lot are you most excited to release and why?

Giuseppe Ottaviani – Indeed I wasn’t expecting such a big reaction with the release of the first singles, but when I saw Panama, Tranceland, and 8K making their way straight to #1 and Colours to #2 I realized that this is probably gonna be my best album yet.

I’m really looking forward to the next single release, it’s an idea I first came out with at a huge Dreamstate Mexico 2 years ago and people seems to love the melody as much as I do. This track is also linked in a way to my favorite movie ever, The Matrix, and the title is ‘Follow The White Rabbit’.

Shivani – Which is one collaboration from the album you enjoyed working on the most?

Giuseppe Ottaviani – There are no collaborations at all. Since each track has been written during one of my shows, or in my hotel room prior to the show, there was not a chance to collaborate with anyone. These tacks were not even meant to be released as I wanted to keep them exclusive to my live show but as you can see I changed my mind in the end even because people were constantly asking me to release those tracks so I have listened to them.

Shivani – Will you be going on an album tour as well? Where will you be taking “Evolver” to?

Giuseppe Ottaviani – I’m playing a special album showcase at Electronic Family Festival on July 20th and that will be the start of my tour. I’ll keep playing mostly my Evolver tracks on every show will come after that, it’s gonna be a hot summer for sure.

Shivani – Off late, we see trance fans getting very cynical when an artist wants to experiment and try something new. The artist immediately receives a lot of criticism. Do you think that sometimes, meeting the expectations of the fans partially restricts your creativity as an artist?

Giuseppe Ottaviani – I think the criticism of fans and people, in general, is an opportunity more than a limitation. Of course, there are non-sense comments everywhere but also some good points to think about. I normally tend to listen to my fans and Evolver is a clear example: not only Evolver happened because people asked for it but also I gave them the chance to vote and decide which track they wanted to be released as single and as you can see the result was undoubtedly good. On the other hand, I really couldn’t care less of comments when I want to try something different and my ‘Slow Emotion’ track series is another good example. I really feel free to do whatever I want, if otherwise my creativity would be killed.

Shivani – What does the rest of 2019 look like for you?

Giuseppe Ottaviani – Well after releasing a full instrumental album I think it will be the right time to drop some new vocal tunes and I already have something big in the making!

Shivani Murthy

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