Madrugada
«Chimes at Midnight»

When Madrugada regrouped to celebr… Read Full Bio ↴Madrugada
«Chimes at Midnight»

When Madrugada regrouped to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of their classic debut album «Industrial Silence» in 2019, they quickly realised that interest in the band had not waned in their absence. It had, in fact, increased, not least on the European continent.

What’s more, they realised that they loved being back together. Being in Madrugada had never been quite this much fun.

Says vocalist and guitarist Sivert Høyem: «It was if as the last piece of the puzzle had snapped into place. I’d never felt so self-assured on stage before. It was no stress at all, whereas in the past it had always been very stressful to me».

The tour was a triumph, with the band selling out shows in the their native Norway, plenty of festival dates and a host of concerts throughout Europe, where the band now sold out halls that were twice the size of the places they used to play back in the day.

10 years on from when the band called it a day after guitarist Robert Burås passed, the three remaining original members – Høyem, Frode Jacobsen (bass) and Jon Lauvland Pettersen (drums) – felt rejuvenated and ready for more.

They wanted to play more shows. In order to do so, new music had to be made. The trip they were on couldn’t be strictly nostalgic. And so it was that Madrugada, a band that usually takes its sweet time to agree on just about anything, ran straight off the stage and back into the rehearsal room in December 2019.

Jacobsen: «We were on a tight schedule. We booked time at Sunset Sound Studio in Los Angeles at the end of February, and had about a month and a half to come up with the material and whip it into shape. It went rather swimmingly. We were still high from touring, raring to go».

Høyem: «Everyone brought something – melodies, ideas – to the table. And then we’d all be let loose on it. We had the «Industrial Silence» album in our bloodstreams after playing it live on the tour, and I felt there was a direct line back to our formative years. Everything came out sounding like Madrugada».

The band worked in their own rehearsal space/studio in Oslo, in another studio, Velvet Recordings, 45 minutes outside the city, and spent a further week woodshedding in Berlin. 70% of the material they came up with, is spanking new. But they also rescued a couple of older songs from oblivion. «The World Could Be Falling Down» hails from the time of their first album. «Slowly Turns The Wheel» first reared its head somewhere between the third and the fourth.

Lauvland Pettersen: «The process was very different from when I recorded my last album with the band [«The Nightly Disease», 2011]. That was a case of ‘second album syndrome’. We didn’t have much going in, and had to come up with the goods on the clock. This time the material was not only written, but thoroughly arranged too».

The band arrived in Los Angeles in late February, happy to be recording in a legendary studio where classic albums by Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, The Doors and the Rolling Stones had been conceived.

Lauvland Pettersen: «It was a boyhood dream come true, for sure. A terrific gift: I’m here, I’m with my dear friends and we’re having the time of our lives».

Producer Kevin Ratterman (Ray LaMontagne, My Morning Jacket, The Flaming Lips) was waiting for them, and the plan was once again to get in the flow and work fast.
The band had given themselves two weeks to put the music, recorded live in the studio, to analogue tape. They met their deadline, and a good thing too. No sooner was the last song on the album, «Ecstasy», in the can, before the world as we knew it shut down. It was March 2020, and the plan had been for Madrugada to go home, rest up for a week and return to do overdubs and mix the album in a studio in Silver Lake. Instead, they had to go home, and stay home.

Høyem: «It was a ‘last flight out of Saigon’ kind of scene. And the tickets weren’t cheap».

Up until this point, the making of «Chimes at Midnight» had been a whirlwind affair. When it became obvious that the world would remain in a state of emergency for quite some time, it was important not to lose momentum. The album would have to be finished by unorthodox means:

Namely by Zoom and via big screen-TVs, with Ratterman and the American team on one end in Los Angeles, and Madrugada on the other, in Oslo, Norway. Frustrating? Oh yes. But the esprit de corps remained strong.

Jacobsen: «The technology enabled us to do overdubs in real time, with Kevin producing us from the other side of the Atlantic. Unusual, to say the least, and quite interesting. But the process became a lot slower».

It goes without saying that Høyem, Jacobsen and Lauvland Pettersen are painfully aware that one of Madrugada’s founding members, Robert Burås, very sadly isn’t around to work his magic anymore. But what other developments have the nigh-on 14 years since their fifth and hitherto last album, «Madrugada» (2008), and «Chimes at Midnight», begot?

Høyem: «The songs are a reflection of who we are in the present time. We’re older. We’re all fathers. I believe I have a more nuanced view of life than I had 20 years ago, a greater ability to feel several things at once. Madrugada’s aesthetic was very New York City and Berlin, we were a punk band that played the blues. All those elements remain. But this time around it felt appealing to explore the more dreamy aspects of what we do. The city we recorded in encouraged us to do so».

Jacobsen: «Chimes at Midnight» is not a conceptual album, it doesn’t point in one particular direction. That makes it somewhat different, in my mind. But it’s made to played live, just like the other albums».

Lauvland Pettersen: «It’s got maybe more of a singer/songwriter vibe to it, I think. If I want to write a ballad and give it the full orchestral treatment, I’m welcome to do it. It’s been therapeutic too. The shows were pure pleasure, and the album’s given me a feeling of closure».

Høyem: «‘Chimes at Midnight’ was born of an atmosphere of true joy and goodwill. To me, it’s a passionate album».

The members’ respect for their shared history is at the top of their minds at all times.

Jacobsen: «I’ve always had romantic ideas about bands in general, and our band in particular. I never wanted to make music outside of Madrugada. I wanted to make it with the people I started out with».

Madrugada are

Sivert Høyem
Frode Jacobsen
Jon Lauvland Pettersen

with
Cato Thommassen and Christer Knutsen

Album discography:

«Industrial Silence» (1999)
«The Nightly Disease» (2001)
«Grit» (2002)
«The Deep End» (2005)
«Madrugada» (2008)
«Chimes at Midnight» (2022)

Biography from their site: https://madrugada.no/#biography

Theres's another band from the 70's that use the same name:

2) Madrugada was a band from Bergamo, Italy, formed around 1970, and had a long life that lasted until 1978. The group derived from some 60's beat bands like I Condor, that included bass player Alessandro Zanelli and keyboardist Franco Orlandini (from Mat 65 and who later worked with Equipe 84 and Claudio Rocchi), and later changed name to Le Lunghe Storie, and along them from Le Bugie and Gruppo 3. But the basic nucleus came from Terza Classe, which also gave birth to Perdio.
Though not properly a progressive rock album, their first one, only released in 1974 by Philips, contains some interesting parts.
It contains seven tracks, some of which were arranged and signed by Roberto Vecchioni (a singer-songwriter that's still very popular nowadays), while three songs were composed by Mauro Paoluzzi.
The first side shows some influences by a West Coast styled sound, with multivocal parts very well executed but not particularly original. Second side contains the long Mandrax, led by Gianfranco Pinto's keyboards, that's probably the best album track.
Except for a limited use of acoustic guitar on Uomo blu the band didn't use guitars and their sound was strongly based on keyboards and richly arranged vocal parts.
Second album came three years later, this time the trio was helped by some guest musicians like Lucio Fabbri on violin (Piazza delle Erbe and later PFM), the jazz saxophonist Gianluigi Trovesi, and Luciano Ninzatti (from Eugenio Finardi's band Crisalide) on guitar.
With a much better production and sound, this can be considered the best of their two albums, with long tracks like the opening Romanzen or Aragon showing a very good composition quality. Another nice song was È triste il vento, that had previously been played by another group from Bergamo that had a close connection with Madrugada, Perdio.
Like in the first album there are some odd different-styled tracks, like the folky Noter de Berghem and the silly Katmandu (that was also released on single with È triste il vento, but with no success), but Incastro can be surely appreciated by progressive music fans. Unfortunately it didn't have a good promotion by the record company.
In concert, Madrugada played on tour with Area, Claudio Rocchi and Biglietto per l'Inferno, and in Lugano (Switzerland) with Kevin Ayers. Moreover they played in many concerts for political movements like Avanguardia Operaia and the Radical Party and the Re Nudo magazine. The band split at the end of the 1970s.
Pinto and Zanelli collaborated with Mauro Paoluzzi in his shortlived Pangea project, which produced only a promotional album in 1976.
Keyboardist Pinto has collaborated with many Italian and international artists (Patty Pravo, Roberto Vecchioni, Adriano Pappalardo, Riccardo Fogli, Gianna Nannini, Brian Auger), and in the late 90's with the reformed progressive group Perdio.
He works in a music school in the Parma area and still plays now in studio, with live bands and in the piano bar circuit.
Bass player Billy Zanelli formed the semi-punk group Judas, with an album on Spaghetti label in 1978, and later played with Roberto Vecchioni.

Discography

LPs
Madrugada (Philips, 1974)
Incastro (Philips, 1977)

CDs
Madrugada (AMS/BTF, 2006 / Universal, 2010)
Incastro (AMS/BTF, 2006 / Universal, 2010)

Singles
Katmandu / È triste il vento (Philips, 1977)

Ramona
Madrugada Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Here's to you
Ramona
I become alive
We're through
Ramona

I'm gonna wait by your side
I've got five thousand dollars

And I want to take you home
I got five thousand dollars
You won't be leaving here alone

There is no tomorrow
There is no tomorrow
There is no tomorrow
Yeah

I get off
Ramona
To let you down
You know there's just enough lovin'
In this heart of mine
To do it with you one more time

We're gonna shout
Ramona
We're gonna cry
We're gonna celebrate
You know that there is no tomorrow
So none of this can't wait

There is no tomorrow
There is no tomorrow
There is no tomorrow
Yeah

Here's to you
Ramona
We're going down in flames
I don't praise
Ramona
Well did it
It's just down by the river
They call it the Bitter End
There is a place down by the river
You know they call it the Bitter End

There is no tomorrow
There is no tomorrow
There is no tomorrow
There is no tomorrow
There is no tomorrow
There is no tomorrow
Yeah

I got just this one chance
To redeem myself

Overall Meaning

The song Ramona by Madrugada is a soulful ballad that speaks of a man’s deep love for a woman named Ramona. He speaks of how he becomes alive when he’s with her and how he’s willing to do anything to keep her in his life. The man admits that he has five thousand dollars and wants to take Ramona home with him, as he doesn’t want her to leave alone. He acknowledges that there is no tomorrow, and that’s why he’s eager to do everything he can with Ramona before it’s too late.

The man in the song admits that he has let Ramona down before, but he has just enough love left in his heart to make it work with her. He’s willing to shout and cry with her, and celebrate their time together, knowing that there is no tomorrow for them. The song ends with the man admitting that they are going down in flames, but he doesn’t regret anything, as he’s just glad to have known and loved Ramona.

Overall, Ramona is a poignant and melancholic song, filled with emotion and passion. It speaks of a deep love that may not last, but the man is determined to make the most of the time they have together.

Line by Line Meaning

Here's to you
Cheers to you

Ramona
Named person being spoken to

I become alive
Seeing Ramona excites me

We're through
Our relationship has ended

Ramona
Named person being spoken to

I'm gonna wait by your side
I'll wait for you to return

I've got five thousand dollars
I have money to spend

And I want to take you home
I desire a romantic relationship

I got five thousand dollars
I have money to spend

You won't be leaving here alone
I'll be with you

There is no tomorrow
The future is uncertain