Kurt Liedwart
Volta
CD & Download
Cat. no. TON1001
Release Date: March 21, 2025
01. Summer
02. Air
03. Klybeck
04. Volta
05. Marina
06. Alter Zoll
07. Sometimes
08. Winds
Written and produced by Kurt Liedwart during the residency at Musikerwohnhaus Basel. Mastered by Christian Müller. Design by Kurt Liedwart. Many thanks to Pro Helvetia, Christian Müller, Sergey Kolosov, Didier Severin, Günter Müller, Norbert Möslang, Jason Kahn, Fabian Gisler.
Kurt Liedwart unveils his new label, TON, with the release of “Volta”, the inaugural album in a planned series of five. After a decade immersed in experimental electronic and occasionally improvised music, Liedwart returns to his roots in techno and ambient—genres he has been passionate about since the early 1990s when he first began crafting music in these styles. For “Volta”, he revisits and reimagines sounds from his unreleased techno albums of the late 1990s, blending them into a fresh sonic tapestry.
Liedwart’s vision for this project is to create music that is both beautiful and, perhaps, tinged with a sense of naivety. He aims to craft tracks that are sonically captivating while remaining firmly rooted in underground aesthetics, fostering a shared sonic experience that resonates with human emotion. The result is an eight-track album that marks a new chapter in Liedwart’s ambient and electronic explorations.
Drawing from a wide spectrum of electronica, “Volta” features recontextualized elements of IDM, ambient, beatless techno, clicks’n’cuts, abstract electronica, and repetitive, icy synthscapes, alongside minimal sampladelia. Some tracks are structured as songs, while others unfold as expansive electronic soundscapes, perfectly suited for the chillout rooms of modern techno club culture. Together, they form a cohesive and evocative work, rich with nostalgia and innovation, offering listeners a journey through Liedwart’s musical evolution and his enduring love for the genres that shaped him.
Kurt Liedwart
Kurt Liedwart is an electronic music producer, DJ and founder of TON and MIKROTON record labels who started his musical career in mid-nineties and has since been working across an eclectic set of aesthetic investigations, exploring intersections of ambient, techno and downtempo. In 2010s he became interested in playing and researching experimental and electroacoustic music and sound art although in 2019 he decided to return to his techno and ambient roots.
As a curator, Liedwart focuses on creating opportunities for artists and audience to build bridges that help to get rid of abyss that separates them. This began in 2008 when he launched MIKROTON recordings with its sub-labels Mikroton Digital and Laminal with a focus on limited edition releases on CDs, LPs and cassettes by a wide range of world renowned sound artists, composers and producers working in a broad range of musical genres from post-jazzy improvised music, which sometimes tries to mimic electronic timbres, and crossover blends of jazz, post-rock, improv and electronica to ambient and minimal electronica. Since its launch MIKROTON has published over 90 editions and has received positive critical acclaim internationally. Since 2013 he organizes Mikroton Live, a series of concerts dedicated to presenting time-based work by emerging and established artists engaged in sound-based practices through performances, concerts, screenings, and workshops. In 2013 and 2014 he co-organized two editions of Teni Zvuka festival and later in 2017 he curated Swiss Noise festival (in Moscow and Yaroslavl) and in 2018 MIKROTON MIKROTEN (in Kaliningrad, Moscow and St.Petersburg). Since 2021 MIKROTON exists in archival mode with no future activities planned at the moment.
In 2021 he launched TON which focuses on releasing ambient, downtempo electronic and techno music of his own production, collaborations with likeminded electronic musicians and rarely their own solo albums on CDs, tapes and sometimes on vinyl.
His recorded sound works have been released by MIKROTON, Ruin Tapes, Zeromoon, Hideous Replica, Copy For Your Records, Untitled Folder, Meteorismo, Intonema and others.
Kurt Liedwart
Volta
CD & Download
Cat. no. TON1001
Release Date: March 21, 2025
01. Summer
02. Air
03. Klybeck
04. Volta
05. Marina
06. Alter Zoll
07. Sometimes
08. Winds
Written and produced by Kurt Liedwart during the residency at Musikerwohnhaus Basel. Mastered by Christian Müller. Design by Kurt Liedwart. Many thanks to Pro Helvetia, Christian Müller, Sergey Kolosov, Didier Severin, Günter Müller, Norbert Möslang, Jason Kahn, Fabian Gisler.
Kurt Liedwart unveils his new label, TON, with the release of “Volta”, the inaugural album in a planned series of five. After a decade immersed in experimental electronic and occasionally improvised music, Liedwart returns to his roots in techno and ambient—genres he has been passionate about since the early 1990s when he first began crafting music in these styles. For “Volta”, he revisits and reimagines sounds from his unreleased techno albums of the late 1990s, blending them into a fresh sonic tapestry.
Liedwart’s vision for this project is to create music that is both beautiful and, perhaps, tinged with a sense of naivety. He aims to craft tracks that are sonically captivating while remaining firmly rooted in underground aesthetics, fostering a shared sonic experience that resonates with human emotion. The result is an eight-track album that marks a new chapter in Liedwart’s ambient and electronic explorations.
Drawing from a wide spectrum of electronica, “Volta” features recontextualized elements of IDM, ambient, beatless techno, clicks’n’cuts, abstract electronica, and repetitive, icy synthscapes, alongside minimal sampladelia. Some tracks are structured as songs, while others unfold as expansive electronic soundscapes, perfectly suited for the chillout rooms of modern techno club culture. Together, they form a cohesive and evocative work, rich with nostalgia and innovation, offering listeners a journey through Liedwart’s musical evolution and his enduring love for the genres that shaped him.
Kurt Liedwart
Kurt Liedwart is an electronic music producer, DJ and founder of TON and MIKROTON record labels who started his musical career in mid-nineties and has since been working across an eclectic set of aesthetic investigations, exploring intersections of ambient, techno and downtempo. In 2010s he became interested in playing and researching experimental and electroacoustic music and sound art although in 2019 he decided to return to his techno and ambient roots.
As a curator, Liedwart focuses on creating opportunities for artists and audience to build bridges that help to get rid of abyss that separates them. This began in 2008 when he launched MIKROTON recordings with its sub-labels Mikroton Digital and Laminal with a focus on limited edition releases on CDs, LPs and cassettes by a wide range of world renowned sound artists, composers and producers working in a broad range of musical genres from post-jazzy improvised music, which sometimes tries to mimic electronic timbres, and crossover blends of jazz, post-rock, improv and electronica to ambient and minimal electronica. Since its launch MIKROTON has published over 90 editions and has received positive critical acclaim internationally. Since 2013 he organizes Mikroton Live, a series of concerts dedicated to presenting time-based work by emerging and established artists engaged in sound-based practices through performances, concerts, screenings, and workshops. In 2013 and 2014 he co-organized two editions of Teni Zvuka festival and later in 2017 he curated Swiss Noise festival (in Moscow and Yaroslavl) and in 2018 MIKROTON MIKROTEN (in Kaliningrad, Moscow and St.Petersburg). Since 2021 MIKROTON exists in archival mode with no future activities planned at the moment.
In 2021 he launched TON which focuses on releasing ambient, downtempo electronic and techno music of his own production, collaborations with likeminded electronic musicians and rarely their own solo albums on CDs, tapes and sometimes on vinyl.
His recorded sound works have been released by MIKROTON, Ruin Tapes, Zeromoon, Hideous Replica, Copy For Your Records, Untitled Folder, Meteorismo, Intonema and others.