On Friday, October 20, 2023, I had the opportunity of interviewing the Trance legend Giuseppe Ottaviani from Italy at The Forbidden City downtown in Toronto. Giuseppe has been on tour all throughout the year and is well known for his blend of tech and trance infused with uplifting melodies. As a producer, Giuseppe currently has eight albums. That’s right! Eight albums! With his latest album named Horizons with 3 parts to it.
For those of you that don’t know Giuseppe Ottaviani, he has been a producer for more than a decade and has come to Toronto a handful of times. From Toika back in the day to Pure Trance with Solarstone and even bringing GO Live 2.0 at U4RIA. Giuseppe has literally been evolving his game and sound throughout the years.
In 2009, he made a significant mark in the Trance scene with his debut solo album, "GO!" Which showcases his love and passion for music, thus establishing a reputation as a new DJ to follow. In the years to come after, he released even more albums including "Magenta" in 2014, "ALMA" in 2016, and "Evolver" in 2019, all which demonstrated Giuseppe's ability to procreate more blends of melodic pieces that are indulged with driving beats, while creating a signature sound that brings you Giuseppe’s style!
Not being confined to the studio, Giuseppe is renowned for his captivating live performances from sets on his tour all throughout the world to his GO Live 2.0 sets and GO Live 3.0 sets. Giuseppe continues to evolve his sound while remaining committed to his style by bringing his own versions of live sets, if you ever have a chance to see any of these LIVE shows! I totally recommend you do it!
That night, Giuseppe played a 4-hour set at The Forbidden City. That’s right, 4 hours! What a blessing that we in Toronto get this, considering the year before at Nomad, we had it then as well. From 11pm – 3am. Giuseppe just kept the crowd going with his blends of tech and trance together. Especially with one of his newer releases at that time “Tears of the Kingdom” with Alex Sonata & TheRio. And surely with a 4-hour set. Most people were there from start to finish! At the end of the night, I had a chance to have a quick interview with Giuseppe Ottaviani himself. Must I say, I had a lot of questions for him considering it was a long night and long set! So, with limited time, I had a hard time choosing what to ask! Haha. So here it goes, I hope you all enjoy it.
THE INTERVIEW!
Can you tell us about yourself and your musical journey as a live-performer and musician.
GO: As a live performer, I’ve reduced the amount of shows I’m doing currently because it takes a lot of time and preparation, especially with the new live 3.0. With that it takes a month of prep before the show, so I can only do five shows per year. Otherwise, every show would sound the same whereas I want every show to sound 95% completely new.
On the brighter side, I’ve been embracing more of the DJ life. I usually don’t play long sets but I’m doing it now. The break I had during the pandemic changed my mind, it opened my mind to different sounds and exploring new things. Thus, I came out with an album called “Horizons” for exploring new horizons.
And the good thing that I like now is that different genres and subgenres are meeting in the middle. Especially when there’s a great melody in every single track you hear nowadays. For example, if you go to Beatport, they have different genres like progressive house, melodic techno, big time techno, mainstage, trance and so much more. Basically, you can grab tracks from every different genre and put them together into one single set and it works.
What I really like now is that there’s a common ground for all these different tracks with their melodies, and that’s why I’m open to playing longer sets. I enjoy playing music from other people too and about 90% of the tracks I’ve played tonight were from other people. Although I do take all the tracks to my studio to have them retouched up in my way. I’m never super happy with what I find usually, but if I like something, I’ll grab it to make my own version of it. But that’s a DJ thing, like everybody does their own edits.
What I do most of the time when I love a track, especially when it comes to techno or melodic techno. I’ll take the track into my studio to add a big melody in the breakdown, so it comes out as a completely different track. This is what I like to play, and in my set there’s many of these. So good luck if you want to do a track list from tonight but it’s impossible. All in all, I just want to make my own impact.
K: How was it like coming out with Horizons from Part 1 to 3? All within a year too, while managing to remaster your own tracks for the OnAir vibe?
GO: It’s the first time that I’ve made an album and remixed it myself. The reason I did that was because of a transition phase. These days, the crowd is more accepting to all the different things you play. For some reason, before the pandemic, if you were an uplifting trance DJ, that’s what you play no matter what. So, in 2020-2021, it was kind of a transition period for me. I didn’t want to shock my fans coming from 138 BPM all the way down to 124. So, I took the time to remix every single song of the album into a 138 uplifting style so that everybody’s happy.
K: Are there any plans to do more Horizon shows? Or Live 3.0 shows? Hopefully we can get a GO Live 3.0 show in Toronto sometime as well!
GO: Yeah of course. I usually play a one-hour main stage set, but I enjoy doing longer sets now. For example, last weekend I did a three-hour Horizons set. I’m also going to be playing at Dreamstate, and recently they announced an after party. So, I will bring the Horizons sounds to the after party and this is the perfect opportunity for me to bring Horizons to a bigger crowd. But for sure, I’ll keep doing this, I usually have my flier posted on Instagram for the tour dates and every now and then you’ll see a Horizons set.
K: Will there ever be a live 4.0 or is there another upgrade?
GO: I don’t know, it’s a lot of work and for now, I really want to go with the flow. But for the moment, I’m not even thinking about this now.
K: By the way, I love how you remix everything on top of your tracks. Especially when you play with the keyboards.
GO: Well, it's not really remixing. I just play the actual track. Basically, the preparation I was talking about earlier is I prepare the set and all the tracks I want to play in the studio, and once I have everything ready with new edits, bootlegs, and new original tracks. I put them into my system, and I play the melodies from those tracks. Nothing super fancy there, but it’s just the live touch I do.
K: Perhaps remixing was the wrong word. It's more like playing an instrument on top of your set to give that extra kick on top. What’s the difference between 2.0 and 3.0 by the way?
GO: Exactly. Well, the main difference is how I play. With the 2.0, I created the music live considering the system was based on loops. I would take the melody and loop it, same with the drums and bass, so everything was very simple to play. With everything being controlled by Ableton, it gave me a different way to play with the music. For that, everything was short-looped where I was playing a few beats, a few melodies and then building the track by launching clips. It was so much fun. Especially since it gave me so many ideas. I even released an album out of the live 2.0 which is called “Evolver”.
In the end, I felt the energy wasn’t quite there because I felt like all I was playing were just demos. Although it was nice to listen to, there weren’t any big drops or impact that the dance floor required. But sometimes when I play, especially at a big festival, the crowd wants the energy and the live 2.0 wasn’t delivering it because it was missing all those parts of a proper production that’s made in the studio. So, I said, no, I need more. It’s time to change to 3.0 where I prepare the tracks beforehand, so that's the main difference.
K: I know that last time you played 2.0 here in Toronto was at U4RIA as well. So we got to see that. Being a producer and DJ for many years, I know you've worked with a lot of different artists. Are there any artists that inspire you and you hope to work with one day, or are there any potential collaborations with anyone that you've worked with before?
GO: Well, talking about who inspires me or who used to inspire me is a thing of the past because as time goes on, your sound evolves. But basically, Paul Van Dyk is my hero. He’s the one that discovered me and inspired me from day one. I’ve got inspiration from him for so many years but nowadays, I'm playing a little bit differently. My inspiration comes from different artists and different experiences.
But yeah, I have so many collaborations lined up. Like tonight, I played the next single coming out soon with AVAO. Two guys from Revealed Records. There’s also a collaboration coming out with Like Mike and another one with Showtek. Basically, all different names that you wouldn’t expect me to collaborate with.
K: I know you worked with Showtek before from an Instagram post about it.
GO: No, I’ve never worked with them before but that’s the track. I’m playing it now but that’s coming out in 2024. I also have other collaborations lined up that I can’t really say much about now. One thing is that when I was stuck with making the album, I couldn’t really do any collaborations at all. So now, I want my freedom. I just want to be free to say hey what's going on? Let’s do a collaboration together!
K: You don't want to be bound to anything.
GO: No, I just want to have fun with it. It’s nice to be able to chat with other producers and be like “Whats up? I’ve been working on this track, do you want to have a listen to the demo?”. “Oh I like it! Let’s do this together!”. “Yeah! Why Not!”. Freedom like this, it really feels more fun than work.
Especially when you’re planning to make an album, it's a big project so you’re planning two years in advance. Imagine having 18 tracks and needing to find collaboration with singers, so you work so hard for so many months. Right now, I’m like what’s happening tomorrow? I don’t care. The album is okay, I can just do a lot of collaborations, lots of new singles and play around with different genres. And that’s what I’m enjoying right now.
K: Which reminds me, I know you came up with the single Tears of the Kingdom recently with Alex Sonata & TheRio. They're actually here next week for AnjunaBeats After Dark. I was just curious, how was the process in making that song? It was a very good song. The second drop halfway in, it was very dirty, melodic as well and uplifting.
GO: Well, that’s what I like. You know, no limitations. The guys sent me this melody idea which I liked and tweaked a bit and added a drop. I told them, I know this is for Anjuna but can we go a little bit harder than usual? They said, let’s try it. So, I made that drop and they made it even more techno-ish. I even asked are you guys sure? They’re like yeah yeah yeah, its gotta be right, we can do it.
K: Just curious, in the drop where it goes like doo-doo-doo. Was that from you?
GO: Yeah, from me. The piano. It's a little piano touch.
K: Okay, I love that part. That was like that one small part that made it very melodic.
GO: Exactly that. That little piano part. And then the vocals, originally it was a sample, some sort of sample from Splice probably. But then we found out someone else already used that. So instead of using the sample, we got a singer who was Tishmal, she got very close to the original sample, adding more lyrics and here we are.
K: In the end, it all came together. I love that song. It's pretty good, hopefully next week when we're at Anjunabeats, I can hear that song again.
GO: Oh, the guys are playing?
K: Yes, AlexSonata & TheRio, Gabriel & Dresden, Kasablanca, MatZo and also Bexxie. It’s a sold out show at History.
GO: Good, good! That’s cool!
K: Yeah, thank you for doing this interview. I hope you have a good time in Toronto.
GO: No worries, I had an amazing time. Thank you.
At the end of the night, we were wrapping things up and I was glad that I got to interview one of the DJs I’ve been following since 2012. I still remember seeing him at Toika back in the days here in Toronto along with the PureTrance shows we had in Toronto! With the EDM scene evolving. I’m glad Giuseppe is keeping the Trance scene alive! For those that don’t know, if you’re interested in learning about producing as well. Giuseppe actually has a masterclass on his website where you can go through a course to learn the many different concepts that being a producer entails. This masterclass actually has chapters such as Inspiration, Melody Comes First, Making a New Track, Mastering, Remixing, Studio Tips and even more to go through. So check it out if you are one that is looking to up your game at being a master producer and DJ!
As for “Tears Of The Kingdom” by Giuseppe Ottaviani, Alex Sonata & TheRIo, and Tishmal. Man is it a good song! There’s an extended mix of the song for anyone that loves to listen to the whole masterpiece. The song starts out with a nice bass-y tech-trancy intro. Followed with beautiful vocals by Tishmal and synths building up the next drop. To the drop where it just wants to make you dance with a very deep bass techish beat which feels quite dirty to me and melodic at the same time with the little piano touch that Giuseppe added in! But oh man. I definitely want to shuffle hearing this drop. And hearing this at both during Giuseppe’s set and Alex Sonata & TheRio’s set at Anjunabeats After Dark the week after was so good!
To Giuseppe Ottaviani, his team and my Electric Escape & Canadian Ravers team. I would just like to take this chance to say. I’m sorry it took me a while to get this all edited and done. Life got busy for me, and then a harder part in life hit when I lost someone special for me. Thus, putting me in a hiatus where I really needed time for myself to come back to reality, especially mentally too. I’m thankful for the support, and I thank all of you for this. I’m thankful that there’s music in to help us feel the emotions we live through in life, as well as give us the drive to keep going and enjoy life.
Once again, thank you for this opportunity and make sure to follow Giuseppe Ottaviani on his socials!
Thanks! -Keith Au aka Keyfu
