Rio Wolta is back! With ‘Belle Epoque’ Rio Wolta is releasing a winter album for cold days and tells a story from the Swiss Alps that was believed to be lost.

Music, poetry and film sequences from the archives of Swiss Television (SRF) become a complete piece - a concept album, if you will. It is the third long player by the 32-year-old Zurich-based artist, who has long since moved freely between several art genres. The multi-instrumentalist feels just as much at home in music as in the visual arts, theatre or film. ‘Belle Epoque’ continues on this path and, by the way, shows that the album as such can survive in the digital age.

The new album sees the light of day today. You can stream it everywhere from now on.

We are in the 1970s. Mr. and Mrs. Swiss are skiing, the winters are white, the future rosy. Switzerland celebrates its national sport and enjoys the last post-war prosperity boom. People are carefree, fearless and full of confidence. Vacations are spent at home, the domestic ski industry is flourishing and the ski resorts are far from being dependent on money from foreign investors. 

Why the 1970s? Why can we call out a new ‘Belle Epoque’ for this period in particular?

"I am fascinated by this light-heartedness, this belief in a predictable future. That is so incredibly far away from us today, and not just since Corona. For me, skiing is the aesthetic expression of this belief. At the same time, Switzerland as a skiing nation seems to be at its peak“.

Rio Wolta's music and voice combined with the images from the SRF archive develop a soothing calm, for a brief moment one seems to be able to wander through the past.

‘Villagers’ is about life in the mountains and fleeing from it.

‘Apollo’ is about perseverance in economically meagre times.

‘Youth’ is about the searching youth.

A piece of Swiss history collides with Rio Wolta's sweet melancholy and his talent for getting songwriting to the point. ‘Belle Epoque’ sounds calm and agitated at the same time and dares to take on big emotions again and again. 

Where does the interest in these extensive, partly very cinematic melodies come from?

"It's hard to say. In my twenties I spent a lot of time at the university. Emotionality, and physicality in general, hardly play a role there. I was trained more as a coolheaded rationalist. It's quite possible that I took refuge in music."

Rio Wolta preferred studying history to art school. It's interesting that it's easy for a historian to commute back and forth between different art forms. In 2021 Rio Wolta is touring Switzerland with 200 tea pots for the sound installation ‘Bittersweet Tea Symphony’ and is writing for a production to be released in spring at the Theater Neumarkt, which attempts to break down the contradictions of the sharing economy with the help of e-scooters. Both are in collaboration with Piet Baumgartner, with whom he has been working for ten years and with whom he also created the excavator ballet video ‘Through My Street’ (which was shown at several film festivals worldwide and won several prizes) back in 2015. 

What is the attraction of the interdisciplinary work?

"I like creating images, thinking about spaces and working with content in these places. In pop music I often miss the preoccupation with the subject. Sometimes I think we are very close to „schlager“ again. Too often it's all about faces and ones own feelings.“

As he did for his debut album ‘Swing For The Nation’ (2015), the 32-year-old also played most of the instruments for ‘Belle Epoque’ himself and recorded many of them too. He was supported by Daniel Hobi (The Legendary Lightness), who also took over the mixing of the album. Guest musicians were Patrik Schmid (drums ‘Villagers’ and ‘Karantain’) and Fabian Eichin (guitar solo ‘Villagers’), who had already been on the two previous albums. The archive research and editing of the videos was again done by Rio Wolta himself.

Especially in times in which streaming services insist on singles and ask musicians to keep releasing new material bit by bit, ‘Belle Epoque’ is a good alternative. It shows that an album can be more than just a string of songs. That way it may retain its relevance in the digital future. But only if it tells us a good story, like here.

‘Belle Epoque’ is released on ‘Sihlfeld Productions’, the recently founded production company of Rio Wolta. It is the first album production on it. Sailing For Peace releases the album on vinyl on their very own record label later this year. 🖤

Pre-order this gem right now!

Or get the Rio Wolta discography on vinyl in one awesome package.