Airdrop Records, Agency & Blog

Interview : Chinua Green and Henry Glucroft / Photography : Bennett Sell-Kline

We had the chance to speak and laugh with Claude VonStroke before his performance at Electric Zoo, which stood out amongst the other A-list performers of the Sunday School stage. Asking him some tough and intimate questions, we see his love and excitement of music before anything else and that a rap song can get you through algebra. Check out the interview after the drop.

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Text & Interviews by : Chinua Green

Whether it’s right at home at the Amsterdam Dance Event or as far afield as Australia and in genres ranging from cutting-edge dubstep to tried-and-trusted populist trance, the Dutch always seem to have a surprisingly strong presence in every DJ-centric music festival considering the country’s size. Airdrop’s Chinua Green was fortunate enough to be able to talk to two of the Netherlands’s most forward-thinking DJ/producers: Joris Voorn and Martyn.

True, the interviews took place at the same festival, and they are both from Holland, but don’t be mistaken— the two DJs each present very distinct flavors to the underground dance music palette, and surely find mutual respect for the distinguished nature of each other’s opus, if nothing else.

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Now moving on to year two of the festival created by Made Event in 2009, which was unsurprisingly a success its first time around. The 2010 is no revolution or major change, the artist line-up is still cross genre and presents many talented artists across the spectrum of electronic music from The Chemical Brothers to Claude VonStroke.

There is a lot of diversity in the sound and appeal as could be expected to draw out the 50k plus fans they hope to bring out. In other words the lineup not only offers musical variety, but you can expect a diverse crowd, from the bridge & tunnel crowd, candy ravers, trance loving i-bankers and of course the “techno” scene.

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Text : Chinua D. Green // July 16th, 2010

Yes, I know, Sónar was a month ago, but a 10-day Euro trip (you try hand-writing a review when you’re in a train that passes through the most picturesque German landscape you’ve ever seen) and a Transatlantic move (if you’re in New York holler at me) seriously got in the way. Yikes, P has already written the Sundae review, which took place a whole week after Sónar… this is awkward. Annnnnyways—

My Jamaican punctuality aside, This year’s Sónar once again put Spain right up to date on the gamut of European electronic music festivals. This year, for the first time, Sónar held a smaller, simultaneous festival in another Spanish city that corresponded to the base event in Barcelona. Sónar chose earnest yet beautiful coastal A Coruña in the region of Galicia. The next time you check out a map of Europe, look for that block of Spain that sits snugly on top of Portugal – yeah, that’s Galicia.

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This week on Resident Advisor’s elemental podcast are featured 90 minutes of one of Airdrop’s top favourites, el señor Leonel Castillo! Offering here a stellar representation of all the subtle genres the wiseman likes to oscillate between, this mix is a rare and pure treat for all ears. Enjoy this precious treasure… with absolutely no restraints!

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE & DOWNLOAD ON RA

Text : Chinua Green | April 25, 2010

The Electrónica en Abril (Electronic in April) Festival is an annual electronic multimedia exhibition that assaults the Spanish metropolis of Madrid for one weekend in the first full month of spring (this year it was the 16-18 April). Electrónica en Abril takes place in La Casa Encendida (literally, ‘The Lighted House’), a bank-financed, community-oriented contemporary arts centre. Here, madrileños and visitors with an appetite for the avant-garde can run across anything from a modern art exhibit to a painting workshop for the physically disabled.

That being said, it comes as no surprise that the minds behind EeA are building a reputation for cherry-picking international artists who try to push the electronic envelope, so to speak. The festival, having just completed its eighth year, has in past editions invited the likes of Kode9 and the Spaceape, Non Standard Institute (Max Loderbauer & Tobias Freund), Ghislain Poirier, Shakleton, The Field, and The Bug.

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Strong from their March gig at London’s Fabric, Airdrop’s Boston duo SOUL CLAP will be showing Miami’s WMC 2010 edition what it’s all about with two top appearances: Saturday morning @ Crosstown Rebel’s legendary annual Get Lost bash and Sunday morning at WMC’s best closing party Sunday School for Degenerates… Don’t miss out on this!

We don’t usually write about other labels and artists than ours, but something serious is profiling on the horizon Airdroppers!

Suol, the new Berlin cruise ship / label just arrived at port, with its crazy crew of captains and pirates such as Chopstick, Johnjon, Trickski and Fritz Kalkbrenner on board…
Yes, this is so terrific that we can’t do nuttin else than underline it thickly!

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“Late last year, XLR8R commissioned a number of city-themed podcasts to celebrate the launch the City Guide mobile application [...] For this installment, we check in with Boston, one of the oldest cities in the US, albeit not one necessarily known as a hotbed of electronic music. Yet folks like Soul Clap are looking to change that, as DJ veterans Eli Goldstein and Charles Levine not only oversee some of the city’s finest parties, they’ve also been busy taking their soulful, disco-infused brand of techno around the globe, producing all sorts of remixes and re-edits, and dropping the extremely well-received RnB FreE.P (click here to download). On this mix, they’ve employed a number of their own concoctions, along with a few of their Beantown favorites, and cooked up a smooth, slow-burning musical journey that does Boston proud.” Words : Shawn Reynaldo for XLR8R – Check for playlist below

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We interrupt this program for a communiqué from Esperanza Land to the World, President Kasper on the air: “Thank’s Americans and non-Americans for all the great times I’ve spent the last 11 days! I’ve enjoyed every city I’ve been to and it has been a super super great and inspiring experience. I will be back really soon!!!”

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