?Red Rack’em, aka Hot Coins, aka Danny Berman, has released some of the best electro, boogie and house influenced electronic music of the last few years on labels such as Tirk, Society, Untracked and Deep Freeze. He also delivers a weekly armful of amazing, unreleased music via his weekly Smugglers Inn podcast, which has been running for three years now, and he’s just about to drop his first album – a pleasingly effective selection of his best 12"s to date: Red Rack’em – The Early Years. He is also responsible for probably one of THE biggest edits / remixes / call it what you will of recent memory.
Red Rack’em: "My music moment (so far) is undoubtedly my remix of ‘Stand On The Word’ by The Joubert Singers that I produced under my Hot Coins disco alias. The original track is a Gospel-disco classic which was recorded in 1982 as a praise record for the congregation of the First Baptist Church in Crown Heights, NYC. The story goes that a copy of the limited run vinyl ended up with Walter Gibbons and it became a hit at seminal clubs The Loft, Paradise Garage and Zanzibar.
I was in the process of finishing off my Valiant Truth EP for Tirk during the summer of 2008 when Sav Remzi (A&R for Tirk and Nuphonic founder) got in touch asking me if I would try ‘something’ with ‘Stand On The Word’. I had already had some success editing ‘Express Yourself ’ by The New York Community Choir, and although I would have never dared to remix such a classic without being prompted, I thought, what the heck, and started messing around with the original track and the ‘clappapella’ (which was all I was provided with).
I had a proper eureka moment when I wrote a fresh section of drums and squelchy synth bass and began cutting between sections of the original track (fattened up with new drums and fx) and my new acid squelchy sections. I tested it at Bestival in 2008, noticed the crowd’s positive reaction to the track. The familiar piano intro trickled in and everyone prepared themselves for the sickly vocals and then suddenly a new dubby acid boogie track kicked off. I didn’t really think much of it apart from being pleased that it sounded good through the sound system.
Suddenly Gilles Peterson began playing it on Radio 1. Getting played once by Gilles is an achievement but he played it on his show, then on his NYC special (alongside my heroes ESG) and even on Zane Lowe’s daytime show during a good-natured Zane vs. Gilles ‘Hottest Tracks Of All Time’ special. This was the first time I had ever had my music played on Radio 1 and I began to get airplay for my other projects from Gilles and Rob Da Bank as well.
Gilles invited me to play at the 2009 Worldwide Awards where I performed a DJ set straight after my heroes Jazzanova in front of a sell-out crowd at Cargo in London. That night was the stuff dreams are made of. My parents were in the crowd being looked after by Michael Ruetten and Ashley Beedle, and unbeknown to me my set was recorded. I only found out when Gilles broadcasted it on his show the following week on Radio 1.
Since then the Joubert remix has continued to be supported by none other than Greg Wilson who has played it in nearly all of his sets in the last year or so. I only found out when I was playing at Snowbombing in 2009 and Greg opened with it. I nearly fell off the stage. I regularly get texts from people at festivals saying “Greg’s just dropped your remix” which is great. It’s the track that will not die.
Make sure you check out his mix for Electronic Beats Radio as well:
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