It's a Saturday night in early November and DJ Gigola is about to make her Boiler Room debut, as part of her Berlin collective Live From Earth. Swarmed by eager ravers and lashed by strobing red lights, Gigola—real name Paulina Schultz, or sometimes Gigi—seems right at home in the chaos. Her first blend into Dottor Dag's 2005 electro house heater "La Batteria Della Mente" is met with cheers. Then she pauses, grinning, tongue-in-cheek. When the topline rings out, "La batteria è completamente, Ricaricata, Ricaricata," the energy dials up another level and she chants along, clearly vibing with the audience. Pacey and menacing, yet bouncy and playful, Schultz's sets often take unexpected turns into different eras, genres and levels of taste. But in her capable hands, it's a journey worth taking.

2022 was Schultz's craziest year yet. In the run up to that Boiler Room, she played every weekend for nine months straight. She also produced two EPs: No Es Amor with Kev Koko and Perra Inmunda and her first solo release, the pacey and catchy techno of In The Mood. Her first full-length followed in February. Fluid Meditations is an album-length guided meditation that pairs the dynamics of dance music with the rhythm of breathing. The LP's gentle grooves, bubbling low-end frequencies and soothing mantras—where beats fade in and out like fleeting thoughts—feel removed from Schultz's pace of life and style as a DJ, but reflect the richness of her music and her practice.

"I'm fascinated with rhythm," Schultz said, as we chatted on a sunny Sunday morning in Berlin. "The whole body is rhythmic. Your heartbeat, your sleep, your hormone release. I think there's something magic about it that makes you move."

DJ Gigola, AKA Paulina Schultz, grew up in Berlin and is a core member of Live From Earth, the international artist-collective based in Berlin.

Schultz had just returned home from a gig in Barcelona, and she was finally chilling out. "I get so out of rhythm when I'm touring," she said. "I change cities, I change countries, I change night rhythms. I also change energy a lot. There's this crazy energy in the club, then I come home and there's nothing on Sunday. It's not healthy. Rhythmic motion is what brings me back to myself, getting into my body, feeling my body."

Schultz's knowledge of the body and its innermost workings is greater than most DJs. She graduated from medical school in 2017, but because her DJ career took off shortly after, she never had the chance to specialise. "At some point I'd like to go back into psychosomatics and do sound therapy, to fuse two things I love," she said.

Schultz grew up in Berlin, and became DJ Gigola after meeting Max Rüting, Lorenz Wirth and Elias Hermann, the founders of Live From Earth. The group was still in its infancy around the time she finished medical school. They'd gone from documenting Nazi demonstrations as anti-fascists, to filming music videos for then-unknown Austrian rap stars like Yung Hurn.

Growing up in the German capital "brings this DIY, punk-ass attitude to everything we do," Schultz said. "We were never bound to any identity group, it was always about authentic characters that do what they want. We do everything ourselves. Before we outsource something we always see if we can do it first. It grew me into the DJ I am today. I'm happy that I never had to beg anybody to release me or have me play, because we did it ourselves."

Growing up in the German capital "brings this DIY, punk-ass attitude to everything we do," Schultz said.

Live From Earth raves began in Berlin, and the collective sold merch to fund its early projects. Merch was Schultz's primary focus at first, until she was asked if she would like to DJ, too. Her first Live From Earth gig was on May 1st, one of the biggest party weekends in Berlin.

"I thought, 'it's the first of May and it's Berlin so it's always techno, that's boring," she remembered. "I'm not gonna do a classic techno set. And the event is mostly hip-hop acts, but I don't want to play R&B or something.' I decided I'll just do something fun with some classic May Day tunes, some trance, some Gigi D'Agostino and some Italo disco all fused together."

Like so many artists, by the time 2020 rolled around, things were looking promising for Schultz. She had developed an increasingly eager audience with her blend of techno and self-proclaimed "fun" sounds. Then, the pandemic happened. She returned to medicine, working as a doctor administering vaccines. Having this alternate career gave her space to breathe."

"I always had it in my mind that medicine was something I can go back to, so this gave me the freedom to explore fun as a DJ," she said.

This element of fun Schultz keeps returning to is actually just code for being herself. She's serious about what she does, yes, but she's also mischievous and averse to the status quo. These contrasting parts of herself are what she calls "twin moments" and they're part of what makes her eclectic DJ sets so thrilling.

At home, Schultz was brought up on a diet of Bob Dylan from her dad, Mary J. Blige from her mum and System Of A Down from her sister, with a sprinkling of Bach thrown in for good measure—her mum also sang in a church choir. She found electronic music in her preteen years, remembering David Guetta's "Just A Little More Love" as a particular favourite, before finding favour in a "more reduced and groovy" sound. She had her first clubbing experience at 15, when she went to Weekend for New Year's Eve 2006. She can't remember who played—maybe Ricardo Villalobos or Ellen Allien—but she was instantly hooked by the vibe. "There was an edginess but also an openness that fascinated me," she said. "I knew this was a place I wanted to be."

Even though Schultz swerved the pop music of her teens, she fondly remembers the skinny low-rise jeans of that time, gushing over Madonna's studio album Music and an early love for grunge. "The grunge kids always had the Levi's with the holes," she said. I was so desperate to have platform shoes and a plaid shirt and show my ass cheek out of my jeans because they were wearing it." She used to run home from school with her friend Gina and steal her older sister's CDs. "We thought we were so cool." she laughed. "I can still see myself eating some chocolate muesli, playing The Sims and listening to Nirvana."

In Schultz's world, musical memory goes hand in hand with fashion and aesthetics. You only need to take a cursory glance at her Instagram to see that she knows a thing or two about style. "I always thought I would be a fashion designer," she said. "I love design so much. Even before Tumblr, I was googling the collections and saving the pictures because I loved it so much."

Schultz is actually something of a fashion encyclopaedia, reeling off designers, collections and years off the top of her head. Her favourite collection of all time? Prada Spring/Summer 2008, which came out when she was 17. This age was an explosive time for her. She found eBay, which opened the floodgates for her obsession, and through the site, she started to build her collection and use sartorial choices to push boundaries with her self-expression. Back then, buying clothes from the '90s was much cheaper than the eye-watering numbers now on resale websites now. As always, she was ahead of the curve.

"The clothes I have from that time mean so much to me," she said. "It's like having records—you dig them out and they represent an era. I still have my first Fendi [Baguette bag]. I'll never give it away."

It was around this time that she also landed a job as a styling assistant, but the elitist and superficial fashion industry wasn't for her, spurring her to take a left turn into medicine which, of course, led to another fork in the path towards music.

Schultz clearly relishes risk and change. Whether it be in her personal life or DJ career, she's never afraid to try something new. And the chaos and precarity of DJ life had mostly served her well, until recently, when an accident in the middle of finalising her new album forced her take a yet another unforeseen turn.

Two weeks after her pivotal Boiler Room broadcast, Schultz's Vespa slipped on black ice in Berlin. She dislocated her foot, breaking her connective bones and tearing her ligaments. "I literally think I needed a break—so, my foot broke," she joked, recounting the intensity of her pre-injury schedule.

In the last three months, Schultz has been on what people with ordinary day jobs might call a phased return to work. She's gradually increased the amount and length of her shows while her foot heals. One in December, two in January and three in February. "I never thought that there would be one thing that could stop me from doing anything," she grinned. And just like that, come March, she'll be back—at full pace.