Ash Pournouri, whose At Night Management firm represents Avicii and Cazzette, has created PRMD Records, a dance label based in the heart of a raging hot Scandinavian electronic music scene.
The label, pronounced, “pyramid,” launches Friday with two acts – Cazzette from Sweden and Morten Breum, an up-and-coming Danish DJ and producer.
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PRMD’s first release is a joint endeavor with Island Def Jam’s newly revived 4th & B’way label to launch Cazzette’s first album, “Eject.” The deal, announced Friday, calls for 4th & B’way to license “Eject” from PRMD and Cazzette and begin selling the tracks on iTunes and elsewhere. The album had been available on Spotify for on-demand streaming but not as a paid download.
Pournouri, who made Billboard’s list of dance music’s most influential executives last year, began his career in music moonlighting as a nightclub owner while plying his trade as an attorney by day. At night, Pournouri worked Sweden’s nightclubs and scoured online portals where DJs hung out – hence the name of his four-year-old firm, At Night Management.
With PRMD, the 30-year-old manager and producer delves deeper into artist development and branches into the recording side of the business. While electronic music sales have been nascent, hampered by the genre’s reliance on sampling in ways that don’t always have clear copyright boundaries, artists such as Avicii, Deadmau5, Skrillex and Basenectar have seen some commercial success with releases of original tracks.
Pournouri hinted that while PRMD’s initial clients fall within the dance genre, the label could be open to others as well.
“We hope to be a creative hub for all artists,” Pournouri said. “PRMD’s facilities will be ready in June and will include four top-of-the-line recording studios and video production facilities” in Stockholm.
The company also plans to open a New York office headed up by Victor Lee.