Airdrop Records, Agency & Blog

In the miraculous world of Airdrop Records co-founder Paulo, where DJing, restless label work and partying all morph into one, everything is much more than what it seems. Only here, bad road accidents result in amazing music output and other even more wondrous creations that make this planet a better place to live on.

Growing up in France, Paulo was way too young to get into clubs when he was starting to feel the electronic pulses of a restless generation ready to change the course of things. After having had the pleasure to select and compile jazz and blues records with his late father, he got infected with the electronic virus a couple years later when his older brother returned from the States with anything from early Tribal America records to Gemini’s “In Neutral” EP.

Crossing the ocean at the age of 18, he bumped into the crazy ass duo Soul Clap and his friend Henry within the first weeks of being there. Before anybody knew what was going on, they were all throwing parties together every Tuesday which were aptly named Airdrop as they were dropping serious electronic sounds onto some clueless students, lifting them into higher spheres of (un-)consciousness.

Airdrop Records was born in 2007 when Paulo decided to work for a couple of years abroad, in this very special case Buenos Aires, Argentina, only to drop into the right place at the right time. With an amazingly vibrant underground scene bringing forth a treasure trove filled with undiscovered gems of producers and DJs alike, the Buenos Aires scene would lay the foundation for his label roster. There he met Franco Cinelli who introduced him to Alejandro Mosso and Andres Zacco. The latter, in turn, also presented him to Leonel Castillo. Their steady output of sheer quality productions was just on the brink of being internationally recognized – it was down to Airdrop to provide a stable platform to showcase this new wave of producers.

The following years were a period of discovery and adventures for Paulo and Henry, as they started releasing monthly 12″ records on Airdrop whilst throwing label showcases in Buenos Aires and at NYC’s Bar 13. In 2009 the Airdrop crew played prestigious gigs at Miami’s WMC, Detroit’s Movement and Zurich’s Streetparade. The year also marked the first 12″ release for Greener Records, Andres Zacco’s techno-oriented label, produced by Airdrop. In 2010, Aux-Rec saw the break of the day – Airdrop’s vinyl-only imprint for bootleg and edit works, responsible for Soul Clap’s officialized Bakerman edit. Going from one strength to the next, one of the most exciting projects in 2012 will be to vinylize Leonel Castillo´s archive of productions under his own Groovear label.

But while Paulo´s head floats in the air and his body rotates behind the turntables, his feet are steadily rooted in reality, enabling his expert musical knowledge to unfold beyond the short-lived nocturnal moments. His experience as a label-head got some prestigious labels to employ him, getting Paulo to manage the logistics of the !K7 Label Group and currently give a new artistic direction to Tresor Records, two of Berlin’s seminal labels.