Kraftman released his new concept album "Giro D'Italia" last Friday, an album all about the Giro D'Italia Professional Cycle Race.
This is the story of the making of this album in Kraftman's own words.
The Album
Prologue & When The Race Is Won
Riding Through The Alps
Ritmo Della Pioggia
Passo Dello Stelvio
Giro ‘22
The Pelaton
A Day Of Rest
La Gazzetta Dello Sport
On The Way To Victory
Leggende Italiani Del Giro D’Italia
King Of The Mountains
La Maglia Rosa
Luigi Ganna & Epilogue
The Story Of The Album
The song “Giro D’Italia” was actually recorded, and included, on the Kraftman album “Electrique Fabrique”, as soon as I had finished the track, I knew I wanted to make a concept album all about the “Giro D’Italia”, it seemed so obvious, even Passenger S
(Metroland & 808 Dot Pop) stated “The Giro” would be a really good subject to use as a concept for an album.
Concept in place, next was looking into the history of “The Giro”, which I found informative and fascinating, a race that has been going for over 100 years, with a
rich history.
I wanted the songs to deliver as much information as possible about the history of the race, a challenge, but a challenge I relished, it was actually the history and the
knowledge I gained that dictated the direction of the songs, which for me, is unusual, normally it is the music first and then fitting in lyrics to suit the subject matter.
Work started on the album in early January 2021, when the first demo recording was made.
Prologue & When The Race Is Won This is a song I started work on in November 2021, it is built around the catchy chorus, which came into my head, and as ever, it was hummed into my trusty digital tape recorder, late one evening. I wanted it to sound big and triumphant, and when I recorded the actual song, it gave me a feeling of elation, just like when you win a race, which is exactly what I was looking for, I wanted it to set the tone for the album, and that is why, it is the opening track on the album.
I decided at the last minute to add a “Prologue” at the beginning of the album, I was watching the opening ceremony for this years “Giro D’Italia”, which gave me an idea, they brought the trophy on stage, that the winner of the race would receive, so using both an Italian voice and English voice I re-created the moment the trophy was paraded on stage over a crowd noisebackdrop and created the start of the race by including a starters horn and samples of bikes racing away, so you have the commentary in Italian and then
repeated in English.
Riding Through The Alps was the first song I recorded a demo for, I came up with the chorus lyrics first and built the song around the vocal melody line.
It is a tradition, that every year, the race passes through the Alps, and I wanted to write a song to highlight that fact, It is a track that came together fairly quickly, the main melody is infectious and strong.
I created voice parts that highlight three of the key passes in the Giro, Passo Dello Stelvio, Passo Di Gavia and Passo Pordoi, I wanted these parts to be in Italian and also included the line “Riding Through The Alps”, spoken in Italian too.
Ritmo Della Pioggia might be a song you have heard before and you would be right to assume that, it is a complete electronic re-working of a track released in 1962 called “The Rhythm Of The Rain” by The Cascades, it is a track I have always liked, it has a
beautiful melody and felt It would fit in with the concept of the album, so I recorded the demo in July 2021, the final version was recorded and completed a month later, it has been adapted to suit a Kraftwerk style makeover, with new parts created, In my opinion it is one of my greatest recordings, I love it! The sounds used on the recording couldn’t be any better.
The title of course is Italian for “Rhythm Of The Rain”.
Passo Dello Stelvio I had to write a song about the most challenging mountain pass in the Giro, the “Passo Dello Stelvio” has a mere 48 hairpin bends and is the 2nd highest pass in the Eastern Alps.
The main sequencer melody is what I came up with first, which sounded beautiful and flowed really well, it took quite a while to get the song done, I wanted to use plenty of sequencer parts and getting them to work in tandem was a challenge but perseverance paid off because I think it is a really strong song.
A lot of vocal parts were created using text to speech software, which give a comprehensive history about the Pass, you learn a lot from this particular song.
Giro ’22 is the signature song for this album, I could have simply done a remix of the track “Giro D’Italia”, however, I wanted to record something new.
The main melody is something that came into my head, whilst in bed at night (as a lot of my ideas for songs seem to begin!). The demo recording, was pretty much, already, a well-structured version, of the song, so a lot of ideas were laid down quickly.
I had already put together some voice parts, using text to speech software, which outlined the basic details about the 2022 Giro, what was interesting was the fact this year’s Giro was starting in Budapest, in Hungary, I discovered that several races had started in various countries over the years.
One of my favourite tracks on the album, as I think I have captured the spirit of “The Giro” really well, I also think the voice parts created are my best to date.
The Pelaton was recorded in November 2021and is one of the tracks on the album that has a strong Kraftwerk influence, a driving bass-Line and strong vocal parts, it is also one of the tracks on the album, that feature my vocals, in addition, my daughter
Charlotte sings on the track .
It was the lyrics that came first for this song, along with the melody for the chorus vocal line, I had laid down the drums and bass and the vocal melody line and began to try different ideas for melodies for the verse parts and the break section, pretty much “jamming” until I created something that fitted in with the rest of the song.
Over the years I had no idea what the purpose of The Pelaton was, to me it looked like a load of blokes out for a Sunday ride, oh no, there is more to it than that, listen to the song to find the answer!
A Day Of Rest I wanted the middle track on the album to be something to represent a rest day in the race, something calming and simplistic, it is a track that was developed in my head including the types of sound I wanted to use, I also decided that the track would be an instrumental as I wanted the listeners focus to be
on the music. The chorus was the first thing I came up with, it was a melody that was in my head for days, it all came together very quickly and it turned out exactly as I had originally envisaged.
La Gazzetta Dello Sport For those of you who don’t know, this is a well-established sports newspaper in Italy and it was an editor of the newspaper that came up with the original idea of the “Giro D’Italia” way back in 1909, to increase sales of its newspaper!!
I had to dedicate a song to the newspaper and it is fair to say that this is another track strongly influenced by Kraftwerk, again the chorus is what I came up with first, it was very infectious and developed the sound to give the chorus element more impact, it is “Ver Kraftwerk” in both its delivery and sound. In some ways it also has a cinematic feel about it, It changes direction a few times, which makes the song stand out, the only
vocal part created was for the break section of the track, it is only a couple of sentences but it tells you all you need to know, there is an Italian voice put through a vocoder too, this song is a big favourite of mine, I like how I have structured the song and made the most of the melody lines I have come up with.
On The Way To Victory was the last track recorded for the album in February of this year and is a full on dance track, I wanted it to be uplifting, in the same vein as the
opening track on the album “When The Race Is Won”, the inspiration behind the music is putting yourself in the seat of one of the bicycles in the race and aftermany years of trying you finally succeed and win the race, a track that spreads joy and puts a smile on your face, this is definitely more of a pop track and has very little in the way of a Kraftwerk influence running through it.
The song developed very quickly, the demo was recorded in a day and whilst I used that as the template for the song, the finished version is quite different.
Leggende Italiani Del Giro D’Italia pays homage to 2 Italian cyclists, Alfredo Binda and Faosto Coppi, who won the Giro D’Italia 5 times, along with Eddy Merckx they are the only cyclists to win the race 5 times.
Some elements of this song have come from a demo I recorded for 808 Dot Pop to be featured on a future album, it is quite a dark sounding track with a haunting intro, the verse melody was the first thing I came up with and I then structured the song around that, it is quite different from the original demo recorded for 808 Dot Pop.
King Of The Mountains was the 2nd song I recorded for the album, this was a great track to work on because it veers off in different directions, as with many tracks on
this album the roots for this track surfaced at night in bed again, the 4 note melody parts were engrained in my head, so much so, I remembered the tune the next morning, which for me is a sign it is something worthy of taking forward, the vocal parts created, detail all the key ingredients for cycling in the mountains, the “Kraftwerk” lead part came pretty quickly, I wanted to come up with something part way through the song that would take the song in a new direction, first came the bell chime parts, which are so infectious, then I came up with my very own “Neon Lights” segment, one of my favourite songs on the album, such a lot going on.
La Maglia Rosa in English is pink jersey, which is worn by the leader and winner of the race, it is symbolic and I felt I had to do a song about it. It was one of the last songs recorded for the album, initially the track was much shorter than the version finished for the album, it was around 3 minutes long and I felt it was to short and so I completely re-recorded it.
The chorus melody came first then the bass-line, the piano type synth bridge is one of the finest melody parts I have come up with, people say that melody writing is my strongest attribute when writing songs and they are probably right, melody to me is the most important aspect of any song, so much crap out there is completely devoid of a melody hook, especially so for mainstream artists!
Luigi Ganna & Epilogue How could I not include a song about the first winner of the “Giro”, Luigi Ganna, this track I developed from the sequencer bass-line, which has a melodic feel about it, by itself, however, I introduced a lot of other catchy melody lines in both the verse and chorus parts, hints of OMD on this track, the track even includes me breathing! A nod to Kraftwerk!
Because of the way I wanted to end this particular song it was always going to be the closing track on the album, as I decided to add the epilogue, which brings the concept to a close, when you listen to it, you will understand why.
The album is available as a digital download on the leading digital music stores and a CD edition will also be released at some point.
Kraftman - Giro D'Italia on Bandcamp
Kraftman - Giro D'Italia on Amazon Music
Kraftman - Giro D'Italia on Apple Music
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