Number Two in this new feature for Makin’ Music and this time up it’s Nottingham Producer and DJ Danny Berman aka Red Rack’em/Hot Coins.

Danny had a pretty hectic 2009 with appearances at Gilles Petersons Worldwide Awards, Snowbombing, Matter, Glastonbury and Big Chill as well as releasing many records on several different labels including Tirk, Deep Freeze, Untracked and Autodiscoteque. He’s an acclaimed remixer for artists such as Tricky, The Revenge, Zed Bias and is no slouch behind the turntables either.

Danny is also a respected radio broadcaster and his fortnightly Smugglers Inn podcasts are eagerly downloaded by leftfield beat heads from across the globe.
You can tune in live every second Wednesday from 7-9pm GMT.

In late 2008, disco giants Tirk Recordings commissioned Danny to give a Hot Coins remix to the gospel disco classic Stand On The Word by the Joubert Singers which is a bona fida ‘don’t touch this’ Larry Levan Paradise Garage classic. Remarkably Danny managed to completely re-interpret the track into a massive new anthem which received extensive radio 1 support from Gilles Peterson. Greg Wilson played in just about every one of his sets in 2009. It was also used as the lead track on the sampler twelve for the new Tirk Compilation Tirk 02…

Danny’s selected 3 of his favourite Sleeves and given us a bit of background as to what they mean to him…

Red Rack’Em : Heart on Sleeve

Various – East Coast Project : A Journey Through the Sound of Edinburgh

This is probably the most influential record ever for me. Me and my friends all lived in Fife and we used to go record shopping in Edinburgh circa 92 – 94 before we all moved through. When this album appeared in the shops in 95 and we realised that we had actually met some of the people that made it, it was very inspiring. It’s a great compilation of jazzy beats stuff which was put together by Joseph Malik (then of Blacka’nized and later on Compost) and it featured loads of talented players and producers from the Edinburgh jazzy/hip hop music scene circa 94. I loved the photos of the groups within the sleeve because I actually knew where a lot of the shots had been taken. Blacka’nized were outside the paper shop at the top of Balfour Street on Leith Walk, Coco and The Bean were on the top deck of an Edinburgh bus, Freshly Squeezed were onstage at La Belle Angel.

The sides of the records were named after different streets in Edinburgh and they had different bits of the Edinburgh street map on the labels. I ended up moving into Rossie Place which was on one of the labels. I have never felt such a personal connection with any other record in my life and I cherish my memories of those times. My group at the time ‘The Wizards’ ended up being on the second volume of the series (which sadly is nothing like as good as the first one) and I remember the day when we all excitedly signed our contracts with Keith Cooper (I was about 19 at the time). ‘So you’re the Wizards…’  asked one of the Cufic Poets (who were an Islamic hip hop group also on the album). ‘Which one of you is the Grand Wizard then?’

(this is the link for the album we were on – http://www.discogs.com/Various-Blunted-2/release/21997

- you can hear a soundclip of our song on there – oh the memories!)

Jungle Brothers – Straight Out The Jungle

This is one of my all time favourite hip hop albums and I got a weird Idlers version which didn’t have I’ll House You on it – but I loved the cover on mine better than the Warlock version. It had photos of them at some kind of lake in the city on the back as well as the famous painted cover art. I think one of them had a pith hat on which is a strong look.
I loved the whole Native Tongues traveling imagery – the idea that they were on a quest. I found the concept of the Jungle Brothers being from some African jungle a lot more exotic than Run DMCs posturing at that time and I loved tracks like Sounds Of The Safari – this was the first hip hop instrumental I heard and was quite influential on me making hip hop beats on a my sharp ghetto blaster which amazingly did overdubs. The Promo is amazing too – was that the first ever tune with Q Tip on it?

Pepe Bradock – 4

This has a mental art installation on it which I assume was specially done for the cover. It’s actually a reference to the dark B side ‘Intrusion’ and has a random Snowman (an ‘intruder’) wearing a fez inserted into a large group of freaky looking child dummies. I love the weird writing on the cover the the apparent links between the Snowman and the recurring swollen faced man on the rear cover. He pops up on a few Pepe Bradock releases. The lines are also on the cover of ‘Life’ too. The release before this one (Forbidden Fruits) had a swollen faced man on the rear cover too as well as some hideously deformed human faces fashioned from ceramic on the main cover. I love the fact that my favourite house producer has totally weirdo covers too. The artwork is by the mysterious ‘Numero Six’ but I reckon it’s Monsiuer Auger as well. He’s got to do something with his spare time.

Massive thanks to Danny/Red for his contribution. Plenty more coming up.