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Irma Records was founded and is still based in Bologna, Italy.

The origin of the Irma name is quite peculiar, to say the least… The same building where they started business in 1988 was once a famous Bologna brothel, ‘Irma Casa Di Prim’Ordine’ (Irma First Class House), hence the name of our oldest label.

In those days the few existing Italian independents were dealing with rock, but a young A&R/musician (Umbi Damiani) and a general manager with a solid experience in record distribution (Massimo Benini) formed a production team together with a bunch of promising DJ's and musicians from the area. Among them Claudio ‘Moz-Art’ Rispoli, future founder of Jestofunk, Cesare Collina aka Tito Valdez, Cesare ‘Black Mighty Wax’ Cera, Checco Montefiori (Kekkotronics, Montefiori Cocktail) and Luca ‘LTJ’ Trevisi (LTJ X-perience).

In the beginning there was house: deep, soulful and often with funk or breakbeat influences, which was pretty revolutionary for those days.

During the years Irma became one of the creators of the so-called chill out sound and then of the lounge / cocktail / easy listening movement. They also became one of the first labels outside the UK to release compilations of early jazzy jungle / drum’n’bass and trip hop, and some of the producers were responsible for the production of unique rare groove and acid jazz compilations that played a part in the bossa explosion.

This century Irma has discovered, among the others, Max Sedgley, already a legend in the UK thanks to the massive ‘Happy’, and Brazilian pop / drum ‘n bass act Kaleidoscopio, the cyclone that swept Italy last year and is about to unleash its power in Europe and Japan in 2005.