Shanghai Ultra is a founder member of VOID, an underground house and techno collective responsible for bringing the likes of Rob Hood and Underground Resistance to China for the first time. He has also produced electronic music from a young age, but it is only in the last few years since moving to Shanghai in May 2005 that he found the right environment to become active in the scene again and began to DJ as well as produce.
He began his music career in 1988 at the age of 13 in Dunfermline, a town in East Scotland. He grew up listening to the sounds of acid house and Detroit techno on DJ John Peel's legendary BBC Radio One show.
During this time he formed a partnership with childhood friend "Kenario", together in Scotland they released several vinyls on labels including the now defunct "Shoop! Records".
Their youthful indulgence in the meaingless and drug-obsessed Scottish rave scene offended the pair's underground ethos and left them somewhat disillusioned. In a reactionary move, Ultra then released the first ever hardcore techno EP in Scotland in 1995, using the name "Unknown Source". It was a release which sent shockwaves through a scene that gorged on cheesy bouncy techno, and put Scotland on the hardcore map. Ultra then disappeared for a few years heading off to university, releasing the odd Detroit techno-inspired transmission from time to time from his secret bunker. He was still enjoying dancing too much to make time for his own musical career.
A year-long stay from 2000-2001 in China, near Shanghai, brought him into contact with the unique body-techno of the Shenhua FC Blue Devil ultra football fans, and hence the Shanghai Ultra moniker was born.
He returned back to the wilderness of the UK for three years, before resurfacing in Shanghai in 2005, feeling that the commercial metropolis was an ideal location to start putting something back into the scene again.
He remains a connoisseur of all machine-made music, and an intimate understanding of Detroit Techno Music resides in his electronic DNA.