Founded in 2010 by Wolfgang Dembowski, Ton liebt Klang stands for top-class deep house, house, tech-house, electro swing and nu-disco music. The label from Hamburg boasts releases by big-name artists in its repertoire and supports young and talented newcomers. Read the full interview with the founder of the label Wolfgang Dembowski and get inspired.
How did you come up with the idea of founding a record label, and what motivates you?
The idea behind the label was to create a platform where my friends who are DJs and I could share and promote our music. Little by little, the label has grown and developed its own sound, which has been shaped by artists such as Arts & Leni as well as Wolfang Lohr. They regularly release their music on Ton liebt Klang.
What motivates me is the possibility to discover and support new interesting artists and to offer them a platform where they can share their music. One of our discoveries is Felix Jaehn, who can boast a few number-one hits. His first song “Sommer am Meer” was released on Ton liebt Klang almost three years ago. KlangKuenstler too has released a few tracks on the label and is now an important part of Stil vor Talent, one of the biggest electronic music record labels in Germany.
Besides that, it is interesting for me to see how the sound of our artists has changed over time, as they shape the label and play a significant role in the future development of Ton liebt Klang.
How does A&R work? How do you look for music trends that might be interesting for your label?
On the one hand, artists who have already released on our record label recommend someone who might be a good fit for Ton liebt Klang. I usually listen to their demos and decide if it makes sense to start a cooperation. In most of the cases, our artists have a good nose for music that can be a good fit for us.
On the other hand, demo submissions via email are another important source of inspiration for scouting. However, demos must stand out and be original, as we cannot pay attention to all the emails we receive.
What kind of marketing strategies do you use to promote your releases?
We use mostly SoundCloud – here we usually upload snippets of single tracks before they are officially released. On the release date of a song, a playlist of the whole release with links to the biggest download stores is created and published on our Ton liebt Klang’s profile page. Targeted reposts by participating performers and remixers help us expand our audience.
What kind of role do social media play in marketing your music?
Nowadays, social media play an important role in music marketing. As I said before, the most important social media platform for the label is SoundCloud. However, Facebook and Instagram are also significant when it comes to marketing our tracks.
Also, we are arranging our debut on YouTube, as we think the video platform has a huge potential for us.
Against the background of financial woes of several download portals – are download shops still important in the electronic music market, or is music streaming dominating?
There is a move towards streaming in our business too. Licensing revenue share becomes bigger and bigger for services such as Spotify and Apple Music.
However, it depends – club music is stronger on Beatport, while commercial music is much more popular on iTunes and on other streaming services.
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