For Danny McLewin, the myth of the 21st-century crate digger is methodology. McLewin excavates, curates, and reanimates forgotten or orphaned sounds, mapping a cartography of music at the intersection of alchemy, collection, and cultural savantism. As one half of the psychedelic-disco duo Psychemagik, and as a solo selector with an uncanny feel for rare groove psychedelia, McLewin has helped reshape the aesthetic parameters of the balearic revival, the cosmic reissue circuit, and the vinyl-based DJ mix. On May 24, McLewin will join the Tryouts London festivities at Control Club, a night that also includes a sleazy live set from DECIUS and a packed venue label takeover.
Born and raised in the UK, McLewin’s early education came through his parents’ eccentric blend of Zappa, Hendrix, Miles Davis, and Eno-filled record collection. He emerged during the late ’90s and early 2000s post-rave collapse, a moment in UK dance music when DJs were looking to the past and sideways, towards Italian library music, obscure AOR, West Coast spiritual jazz, and the space where folk met synth.
As one half of Psychemagik, alongside Tom Coveney, McLewin achieved cult status with original productions and curated compilations. The duo’s debut single, “Running to My Life,” appeared in 2009, but it was the Magik series on Leng Records—Magik Cyrkles, Magik Sunrise, and Magik Sunset—that secured their place in the pantheon of contemporary curators. Across each, Polish jazz sat next to French spiritual disco, Swedish soft-rock folding into Afro-Peruvian percussion. Their celebrated 2016 release, Ritual Chants on Eskimo Recordings took this even further, thematically segmented into “Love,” “Beach,” and “Dance,” and stitched together with forensic care. Their debut full-length, I Feel How This Night Should Look (2019), was the culmination of years spent touring and gathering emotional landscapes. It featured collaborations with Quinn Lamont Luke and others, blending pop vocalism with shimmering textures and sunrise-friendly tempos.
Yet McLewin’s solo work under the Skyrager alias reveals another dimension. If Psychemagik is dancefloor ecstasy, Skyrager is the comedown. His fortnightly 1BTN radio show, broadcast from Brighton, is a gently surreal drift through lo-fi private press gems, homemade jazz, library music, and soundtrack anomalies. In 2023, he released Traces of Illusion on Spacetalk (a label he co-founded), a 15-track collection sourced from decades of crate digging. His 2024 Skyrager EP, Love Is the Massage, offered five obscure edits across Caribbean disco and European boogie pressed to vinyl.
McLewin is also a regular on other radio platforms. His Worldwide FM, The Lot Radio, and Balearic Social Radio appearances consistently feature exclusive edits and unreleased finds. During a guest set for the We Out Here x 1BTN series in 2024, for example, McLewin spun a set that opened with ambient jazz and ended in broken-beat boogie.
Beyond the studio, McLewin has performed across the globe. With Psychemagik, he’s graced stages at Glastonbury, Love International, Electric Elephant, Virgo Festival, and the final Space Ibiza closing party—where their remix of Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere” reportedly closed out the night. As a solo DJ, he’s appeared at Good Room Brooklyn, Wilde Renate in Berlin, Badaboum in Paris, Pikes Ibiza, and countless pop-up parties. Those on the dancefloor often note that a Skyrager or Psychemagik set feels shared, as if navigating collective memory through music that seems familiar but isn’t.
His remixes, official and not, are no less influential. The Psychemagik edit of “Everywhere” went viral before “going viral” was a promotional strategy. Other high-profile reworks include HAIM’s “Falling,” Azari & III’s “Reckless (With Your Love),” and a lush ambient rework of Ludovico Einaudi’s “Time Lapse.” These tracks, often shared informally via DJ sets or SoundCloud, became sonic memes. They're not remix culture as novelty, but as re-framing songs within broader emotional and aesthetic traditions.
McLewin’s discographic reach extends to collaborations beyond Psychemagik. In 2017, he launched Ghost Vision, a project with Thomas Gandey exploring live band krautrock textures and kosmische grooves, which was released via Love On The Rocks, Bordello A Parigi, and Pinchy & Friends. These records eschew samples for analog instrumentation and improvisation.
Equally important is his role as a curator. With Spacetalk, he has spearheaded reissues and compilations that bypass obvious selections in favor of narrative cohesion. Unlike some diggers chasing value or exclusivity, McLewin’s choices seem guided by resonance—music’s ability to trigger reverie. Traces of Illusion may be the clearest expression of this impulse: a map of forgotten dreams rendered tactile.
To listen to Danny McLewin is to step into a hall of mirrors that stretches through decades of buried sound and returns it with intimacy. His work reminds us that the dancefloor is not only a place of rhythm but also of archaeology, reverie, and shared myth.
