Azuli Records - History

History

The Azuli Records label was the UK's longest running house label, releasing a total of 278 singles on Azuli Label and over 60 albums.Dave Piccioni, a DJ who had lived in New York's formative house community, began by selling 12" singles from the back of a van. In 1990, Piccioni took over Black Market Records shop in London, and in 1991 he started Azuli Records.

At the time there was a lot of house coming out in London from the acid scene but also a lot of stuff that was more American sounding which we wanted to put out. —David Piccioni

Azuli's debut release was Chocolate Fudge's Inner Fantasy. By the mid-1990s, the label began to have UK chart crossover hits.

After about 7 or 8 releases we had already gained a lot of credibility, but we weren't actually selling that many records. We were on a honeymoon period where all the magazines were talking about us but it didn't really reflect on sales. —David Piccioni

In 1998, Azuli released the hit single Needin' U by David Morales, followed by other hits including Eclipse's Makes Me Love You (1999) and Afro Medusa's Pasilda (2000), the latter of which reached number 31 in the UK Singles Chart in October 2000. The label has since released over 200 singles and a number of compilations albums by the likes of Frankie Knuckles, Joey Negro, François K and Danny Tenaglia.

Azuli have also released a number of DJ mix album and compilation album series':

The Choice compilation series are retrospective albums, wherein all tracks are selected by renowned DJs. DJ's include Danny Tenaglia, Tony Humphries, François K and Derrick L. Carter, X-Press 2, Jeff Mills and John Digweed.

The label also releases annual compilation CD entitled Miami, Space: Ibiza and Made in Italy.

Finally, the Club Azuli project was a compilation series featuring current dancefloor hits, in both mixed and unmixed versions. Club Azuli is also the title of Azuli's event program which, for the past two years, has been visiting the finest clubs across the globe.