Red Rack'em

Red Rack’em’s journey has hardly been conventional. With over two decades worth of hard work and experience behind him, his genuine love for music of all forms has never diminished.

Growing up in a small Scottish fishing village in a Buddhist family during the eighties, Danny was always an outsider of sorts. Finding solace in music, he immersed himself in hip-hop – the likes of Public Enemy, Gangstarr and De La Soul – and quickly developed a fascination with the sampling and scratching methods that made up these records.

Determined to become a scratch DJ, he began learning at the age of 12 on a “shitty little suitcase turntable” whilst playing the drums in bands with friends, until he was old enough to blow his student loan on proper equipment – and promptly dropped out of college to focus on his obsession.

With fellow music-loving friendships formed all over the country, Danny immersed himself in jungle and drum n bass in Bristol via UK hip-hop, funky house and disco in Liverpool, and Carl Craig, deep house and techno at weekend-long parties in Edinburgh, before settling down in Nottingham where he would regularly attend local tastemaking and legendary club The Bomb.

It wasn’t until 2002, whilst working as a television editor, that Danny bought his first computer and started seriously teaching himself production techniques. He found himself taking to it fairly quickly, finding similarities between the video editing techniques and working on sequencers like Cubase and Logic. Unsurprisingly, the skills used in his video editing day job back then fed into the stylistic hallmarks of his productions today - editing and sampling.

He began using this knowledge to help others, working as a teacher of DJ skills and music business in Nottingham between 2002 and 2009, even witnessing the birth of grime first hand amongst his students. Danny still makes time to teach occasionally delivering guest lectures at St Andrew’s University, masterclasses for Apple and CDR, and workshops in Auckland, Tel Aviv and Reykjavik.

However, it was only once he quit teaching to pursue music full time that everything began to fall into place for Danny. He still cites gigs from this pivotal year as highlights of his career to date; including being handpicked by Gilles Peterson alongside Floating Points as an upcoming talent to play at his Worldwide Awards, where he played a peak time set alongside the likes of Jazzanova and Laurent Garnier. Unbeknownst to him at the time, his set was recorded live and broadcast on BBC Radio 1 a week later.

In 2010, he launched his own label Bergerac with the ‘How I Program’ EP. The title track went on to become a real success; featuring in Four Tet’s Fabric compilation and leading Mike Huckaby to name a synth patch on his Waldorf ‘Red Rack’em Bass’. He’s now had several more successful releases, including 2009’s remix of Joubert Singer’s ‘Stand On the Word’ – which received radio support from Gilles Peterson, Zane Lowe and Rob da Bank – 2011’s ‘Kalimba’ on Innervisions sister label Philomena, and 2013’s much loved anthem ‘In Love Again’ on Wolf Music. He’s also released on the likes of Sonar Kollektiv, Ramp recordings, Phonica, City Fly, Tirk and Telefonplan amongst others.

After moving to Berlin in 2011, things have only got busier for Red Rack’em. He now runs three labels in total: Bergerac for “the weirder and more banging end of my productions”, Nettles, “a bootleggy edit type label with naughty disco samples”, and Smugglers Inn, the companion to the tastemaking radio show he has been running for over 10 years. Releases so far have featured early tracks from Tommy Rawson (ex Souled), Ajukaja (pre Rare Birds), Carlos Nillmns (now signed to Planet E), Roman Rauch (now signed to MCDE), Franklin De Costa (now signed to Bercoise Heroique and Moscas Not So Much).

Whilst he’s been known to regularly tour Europe’s leading clubs, as well as further afield in Australia and Japan, Danny has found some of his favourite gigs living in Berlin. For the launch of his last LP in 2013 under his Hot Coins alias, he put together a full band and performed the album live as a vocalist and frontman for the first time at Wilden Renate, also booking the likes of Optimo, Hunee and Crazy P to support. Nowadays, he finds that “there's nothing like playing 3-6 or 6-9 at a great club like ://about blank or Griessemuehle with complete musical freedom and a packed dancefloor. It's a unique and really inspiring position to be in.”

It’s all of these experiences that have come together to feed into his latest album ‘Self Portrait’, made over the course of four years worth of a “transitional period” whilst living in Berlin. Drawing on obscure samples and channeling disco, soul, funk, and classic house, the album is a truly unique offering. Lead single ‘Wonky Bassline Disco Banger” was one of the biggest tracks of 2016, receiving widespread support from a diverse range heavy-touring DJs like The Black Madonna, Moodymann, Eats Everything and Mano Le Tough, even receiving mainstream radio support from Mistajam, B.Traits and Danny Howard on BBC Radio 1.

However, Danny’s aim for the album wasn’t initially to create club hits; “Self Portrait is just me saying ‘hey this is me’ - I feel really comfortable to present my take on things and although there’s been some turbulent times to get here, it’s influenced by peace and positive forms of solitude… I am having fun on the tracks. less pressure to make people dance and an opportunity to give people a feeling and a vibe about my life and my story.”

A true musician, Danny plans to eventually take out the album on a live tour, even as he works on a huge number of new tracks that could already form the basis for another LP. Meanwhile, he’ll be continuing to run his three labels, radio show, and keep touring and guest teaching. Whilst he could lay claim to being one of the busiest men in dance music, Red Rack’em’s love for his craft means he won’t be slowing down any time soon.