From illegal raves to the booth at Panorama Bar, PARAMIDA’s story is one of persistence, curiosity, and evolution. With a career defined more by steady progression than flash-in-the-pan moments, this bona fide selector has emerged as one of electronic music’s most vital and unpredictable voices.
Born with a deep love for music and raised in a household where it was ever-present, PARAMIDA received her first CD player at age seven and quickly began collecting. A fateful visit to a Toronto record store introduced her to Laurent Garnier and Miss Kittin & The Hacker, planting the seeds of a passion that would take root years later on dancefloors across Berlin and Frankfurt. But it was an illegal rave in Tehran during her teens that truly marked her initiation into the deeper, more transgressive side of club culture. Soon after, Robert Johnson became a regular haunt, and with it came the decision to learn to DJ — a decision that would shape the next 16 years of her life.
If there is no single breakthrough moment in this story, it’s because PARAMIDA’s ascent has been gradual, defined by longevity and sustained impact. Her Panorama Bar residency and repeated recognition from the BBC — including a BBC R1 residency, an Essential Mix, a documentary feature, and a spot on the BBC 100 Women’s list — are among her most meaningful milestones. “We always think of a certain moment of transformation,” she says, “but I think the journey *is* the transformation.”
Indeed, her career has resisted easy categorization. Though DJing remains at the center of her practice, PARAMIDA ventured into production just six years ago. Encouraged by friend and collaborator Alex Kassian, she began translating her record collection into compositions of her own. “I see myself more as a DJ than a producer,” she admits, but her releases have carved out a distinct space all the same. Records like ‘Devil’s Destination’, her latest EP and first in three years, reflect a polymorphous sound palette rooted in emotional resonance and rhythmic sophistication.
Still, the journey hasn’t been without its challenges. “One of the biggest I faced and feel like I’ve pretty much overcome, is gaining credibility and being taken seriously,” she reflects. While she’s built everything herself without industry shortcuts, she remains acutely aware of persistent inequalities. “One thing that bothers me though is the pay gap between female and male artists.”
Her approach to DJing, too, reflects a nuanced understanding of the craft: “Find the balance between what the crowd wants and what you want—that’s the art of DJing in my opinion,” she says. For PARAMIDA, there are no fixed genres or formulas, only the right track at the right moment. Her sets evolve with time but retain an unmistakable sense of groove and depth. “I do think that I play quite groovy and 100% sophisticated, but accessible to the underground and the mainstream,” she explains.
Integral to PARAMIDA’s evolution is Love On The Rocks, the label she launched in 2014 while working at a Berlin record store. “There was something missing,” she says of the crowded weekly drops, and so she created her own space—a space for irreverent, emotionally charged, and often genre-defying music. The label has since become a cult touchstone, described by some critics as “one of the best house labels of the decade.”
Love On The Rocks’ spirit is perhaps best captured by its founder’s own words: “It is defined by irreverence and unpredictability, with a touch of spiritualism, psychedelia, humanity, humor, and an embrace of the unknown.”
This ethos carries through her latest work. ‘Devil’s Destination’, released in May 2025, features two original tracks, a collaboration with E-Talking reimagining a rare 2002 French deep house cut, and a remix by the legendary Mathew Jonson. The EP distills PARAMIDA’s ability to honor the past while pushing it into strange, exhilarating new terrain, closing with ‘Sayonara’, a beatless coda that gestures toward ambient and dream house, inviting listeners into a liminal space between dancefloor ecstasy and inner reflection.
As for what’s next? “Let’s ask the oracle,” she laughs. But if her past is any guide, the future will be deeply felt, fiercely independent, and impossible to predict.
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