In 2012 I had the honour of conducting an in depth interview with Keith McIvor aka acclaimed DJ / producer, JD Twitch. In it we covered Keith’s incredible turntable trajectory from its beginnings in Edinburgh’s small venues. A journey that found him initially spinning a mix of EBM, hip hop, dancehall, industrial, On-U Sound, and indie-rock, before, in 1990, progressing to a playlist of strictly house and techno, and establishing, alongside DJ partner Andy Watson aka Brainstorm, the long-running club night / hallowed – for many life-changing – shrine, Pure. Here the two hosted legendary guests from all over the world, and also launched the label, T&B Vinyl. 

We talked a lot about why, in 1997, bored with how hard and rigid techno had become, Keith had started a Sunday night shindig at Glasgow’s Sub Club – with close friend and musical co-conspirator, Jonnie Wilkes – called Optimo. For Keith the move marked a return to the eclectic, and the party helped to kick-off a punk-funk revival, plus a collision with electro-clash. We also touched on what it was like, after 11 years, to take that show on the road. That chat is still online, if you’d like to check it out, over at Test Pressing.

Since then Optimo, Keith and Jonnie, have travelled and travelled, all over the globe, headlining countless clubs, festivals, and events. Keith’s current imprint, Optimo Music, continues to expand, and contract, having over the last decade housed multiple sub-labels – Selva Discos, Optimo Trax, Autonomous Africa, Against Fascism Trax… the process reflecting their founder’s seemingly inexhaustible energy and enthusiasm for new projects. His thirst, hunger, for music of all genres, and time frames, has most recently resulted in an amazing compilation of 1980s anarcho-punk, entitled Cease & Resist. 

The promo around Keith’s forthcoming appearance at Wild Wood Disco later this month, meant that I had the opportunity to pick our old conversation back up. At Keith’s request I posed a few slightly more serious questions, and via his astute answers, after over 30 years of DJing, his love and passion for dance music still shines, boldly and brightly, through.

Twitch at Phonox

We last spoke in 2012. Are you still based in Glasgow?

I am. I can’t imagine I’ll ever not be. I spend a lot of my life travelling and always look forward to coming home.

When we last spoke we were waiting for your KXP remix to be released. 10 years ago you were doing a ton of remixes. Do you still get a lot of requests for remix work? 

It took another 6 years for that KXP remix to get a vinyl release. 

I burned out on remixing. Discogs tells me I did 108 remixes, though it’s probably a few more. There was a long period where it feels like I was permanently hidden away in my studio working on them. I really loved the process and the challenge, as more often than not I’d be convinced I’d never be able to finish a remix, but I would always find a way, which was hugely satisfying. I really learnt how to produce by remixing and never ceased to be amazed by all the remix requests I’d receive. But, most of them just vanished into the aether and eventually I found that frustrating. I tired of the process too and decided to stop doing them but the requests kept coming in and it was hard to say no, but eventually I did.

I think if you stop putting your energy out there the universe responds in kind and when I stopped the requests did too. Alternatively maybe I just had a good sense that it was a good time to call it a day? I do get the odd request still and will very occasionally do one if it is something that really appeals to me.

Do you still get a kick out of production? 

Yes, very much so, though I no longer have a studio as I got married and it became my step-daughter’s bedroom. I still do bits and bobs on my laptop but plans are afoot to build a new studio. I have all sorts of secret side-projects, mainly nothing to do with the dancefloor. One of them that’s no longer a secret is called Tomorrow The Rain Will Fall Upwards. It was a collaboration with the Blackest Ever Black label. I played something I that I’d made for a theatre show on my NTS radio show and Kieran from BEB heard it asked if he could release it. He came up with the artist name, as I wanted it to be a secret project, and then he suggested that I make a whole album, which I did and was very proud of. When the label folded I decided to put it out myself and hope to make a follow up sometime. I have really embraced AI with regards to music production so that will probably be reflected in how it turns out.

I wanted to ask a little bit about your various labels, and some of the artists that you’ve had on them. I was wondering what happened to Organs Of Love and Golden Teacher? They were both Optimo favourites of mine. 

They both split up. Jim from Organs Of Love – and formerly of One Dove and Altered Images – is involved with a new outfit – well they have been going several years now – called Womensaid. I released an E.P. by them in 2018. He’s a professional dog walker and I run into him all the time in my local park. Alicia, the other half of Organs Of Love went on to co-found LAPS with Cassie from Golden Teacher, who released 2 incredible E.P.s. She lives on a remote Scottish island now. Golden Teacher split up a few years ago, just as it felt they were poised for great success, and most of them ceased all musical activity, although the two Pitt brothers, Laurie & Oliver, are still very, very active in the Glasgow music underground.

Optimo Trax has become Against Fascism Trax, a charity / fund-raising entity. Could you please, again, tell me more about the label, and what it was in particular that prompted the change? 

I’m big on having short-lived label projects under the Optimo Music umbrella that are all-consuming for a while then I move on. I love it – a huge burst of new energy, and then I’ll feel it’s time to do something different. In the past I had Autonomous Africa, which was a completely separate entity to Optimo Music, and raised funds for various NGOs in Tanzania and Ghana. Optimo Trax was Optimo Music’s 100% dancefloor-aimed label and was always going to end if it got to 33 releases, which it did. More recently there was Against Fascist Trax, which was a fundraising label to support anti-hate / anti-far right organisations. It’s tough to make a profit on 12” singles so it stopped after half a dozen or so releases as I found other more effective ways to raise funds. Optimo Music has had multiple sub-labels which really, are ways to entertain myself, and of course to share great music. Currently alongside Optimo Music there is Optimo Music Digital Danceforce, for digital releases, Optimo Music Tapes and Optimo Music Archiv for music from the past.

How did Selva Discos come about – Optimo’s Brazilian division? How did you connect with Augusto Olivani?

The Selva Discos connection came about as Augusto and I are good friends who met on my first ever trip to Brazil and hit it off right away. He then came to Glasgow to visit and not long after started the Selvagem parties in Brazil, which really took off. I would go on to play for him there several times, the most recent time being last summer at their festival in São Paulo. He’d discovered all this incredible forgotten Brazilian music and wanted to start a label to release it, but didn’t know how to go about it, so I suggested we do it as a collaboration and I’d do it as a sub-label of Optimo Music, until such time as he had enough experience to run it himself. After 9 releases I knew he could do it himself so suggested it was time for him to go it alone, and he did.

Would you be able to share some of what you have lined up for these labels? I have to say that I love the forthcoming Black Bones tracks – especially the dub one. I`d part with my cash for a vinyl copy of that. 

There are over a dozen upcoming releases. The next few ones include a supremely deep album by Kaukolampi – one of KXP, a double album by Blotter Trax – a project by Magda and Jay Ahearn – rooted in electro and acid, and inspired by the early `80s NYC downtown scene, a first ever vinyl release of A Bad Diana’s The Lights Are On But No-One’s Home album and singles by Black Bones, Tom Sharkett, Charlotte Bendiks.

With all the current problems / delays in vinyl pressing, plus the expense, do you think that the dance music 12 is dying? You mentioned that you now have the dedicated digital Optimo offshoot.

Unless the costs come down, which seems unlikely, I think releasing 12” singles for me personally is probably over. I hope there is a way forward for them but it does feel like they are becoming a format that’s increasingly elitist with regard to who can afford to buy them. While I’d love all my digital releases to be on vinyl I do like that they are more accessible to people and that I can get them out in a relatively short amount of time.

You have an encyclopedic knowledge of music, of all genres – as evidenced by all the cracking complications that you’ve curated – DIY Cult Classics, Kreaturen Der Nacht, Polyphonic Cosmos, and most recently Cease & Resist. Miracle Steps is my own personal favourite – an absolutely amazing collection. Are you still buying a lot of records? Do you have a particular musical obsession at the moment?

I’ve been DJng for 36 years and music has been my living for 33 years now, so the way I look at it is that it would be a bit odd if I didn’t know a lot of music, but at the same time I also appreciate that I probably have an abnormal thirst to hear music that I’ve not heard before. I can’t understand people who have DJed their whole working life yet are only into techno, for example. I don’t mean that in a judgmental way, but for me, loving music is about discovering and hearing as much music as I can, so this is what I do and it is of course a never ending journey. I started DJing because it was a way to share music that I love and that’s still true – DJing as a way to evangelise music doesn’t seem so common these days. Releasing compilations is another part of this same sharing music I love ethos.

I do still buy a lot of records but I’m perhaps a bit more thoughtful about what I buy currently as I have too many records and it started to drive me insane having records literally everywhere. It certainly drives my family insane! I also realised that I have a huge number of records I’ve not fully got to know so I’m trying to do a lot of digging in my own collection. One recent musical obsession has been the music of Mike Dorane, a genius UK-based Jamaican who made a huge body of incredible music in the 1970s. I have gone down endless wormholes trying to find a way to reissue some of his music, so far without any joy. I have a couple of other current obsessions I’m trying to channel into compilations but would rather keep those secret until they’re nearer completion.

Your most recent is compilation, Cease & Resist – Sonic Subversion & Anarcho Punk In The UK 1979 – 86. Is there currently a music of resistance that calls for, demands change? If not, are we in need of one? Are we likely to get one? Profits from the compilation will go to the Faslane Peace Camp. Can you please tell me more about this organization and why it is important to you?

Outside the West, the most certainly is a current protest music. In the West I’m not so sure. I do think we need one. Quite often I’ll drop bits of speeches or anti-Tory chants into my sets and am astonished by the response, I think there is an appetite for it. I’m not suggesting a rave be full of music with a message of resistance but I’d certainly welcome some more.

Faslane Peace Camp is located outside Faslane Naval base, not so far from Glasgow, which is home to Britain’s abhorrent Trident nuclear missiles. The camp has been there, protesting since 1982. I hope in my lifetime that I will see those missiles leave Scottish soil. I have infinite respect for those who dedicate their life to getting rid of these heinous missiles, which are also often driven through the heart of Glasgow on their way to Faslane. It felt the peace camp were more than well deserving to receive any profits from the release.

Ten years ago you talked about scaling back the DJing and traveling a bit. Did you manage to do that?

Ha! I did not manage to do that at all! I did finally have two years of pretty much going nowhere, but so did almost every other DJ on the planet. Last year was my busiest gig year ever, but this year I seem to have found a better balance. It has taken me too long to appreciate how much I also enjoy family life, and I got a dog recently who I’m beyond smitten with and miss enormously if I am away too long.

You built your DJ reputation on what began as 2 small, underground clubs – Pure and Optimo. I was wondering if you think “the underground” is still alive and well?

I live fairly centrally in Glasgow, and I’m always walking around the city and constantly astonished by the number of posters I see for small, underground nights, so it is definitely alive and well here. 

Are you confident that the underground will always exist?

I think it will. There will always be people who are in opposition to the mainstream and want something a bit different, deeper and more interesting. 

Do you think that it would be harder now to get a weekly party, with say only 2 residents, no guests, off of the ground? Building a following purely by word of mouth? 

There are a couple of nights locally that have managed to do this, but on a monthly basis. However, to do a successful weekly feels like a tall order currently. I was blessed I managed it once, let alone twice! I feel few clubs would give anyone the amount of time that would be required to nurture such a night, and also the longevity factor might be tricky. It feels insane in hindsight that we managed to do a weekly club for twelve and a half years. In current times, with the speed things are deemed ‘over’ on social media, that’s akin to a lifetime. 

Do you think that established venues would be up for taking that risk? Or would you need to search for alternative spaces? 

I think alternative spaces would need to be found for sure! 

As someone interested in dance music my social media feeds are full of advertisements for festival-like events, with huge line-ups. To be honest, these seem a million miles away from why I got into house and techno over 30 years ago. I was wondering what you made of these events?

I enjoy them, or rather I’ve come round to enjoying them through exposure to playing at so many. Of course these range from the soulless, identikit, purely designed to extract as much money as possible from people type of events, to those put together with genuine love and passion, and we are blessed to play mostly the latter. I like playing outside, in daytime or early evening to a large, diverse audience, on a massive sound system. It’s a very to playing in a nightclub, but I’ve discovered that I’m quite well suited to it, and I think pretty good at it. After thousands of nights spent in nightclubs, while I do still love playing a great club, my enthusiasm for playing say 4 until 7 am in a smoky nightclub is not as great as it once was. 

Also, maybe you are only seeing the adverts for the big, huge line-up events as opposed to the more interesting, more ‘underground’ ones. We did our own festival last year, in association with our friends at Ransom Note, called Watching Trees. It was for 500 or so people and was one of the greatest, most life affirming things that I’ve ever been involved with. It felt exactly like the thing that got me into house and techno over 30 years ago, though it was much broader musically than that. There was so much love there, and every single person there seemed to have one of the most magical weekends of their lives.

I think you’re right. You need to shop around for the more “bespoke” ones. Do you think that financial pressures, caused largely by the pandemic, have forced dance music into this situation – are only big events / festivals profitable / sustainable?

No. We didn’t do our festival to make money, but did break even, and it is definitely sustainable. Sadly we were unable to do it this year but we will be back in 2024 and will hopefully continue to do it for love, not money. There are people with a similar ethos all over the world doing similar things.

We also still do incredibly successful relatively small club nights in Glasgow too. We have a bi-monthly night at this fantastic venue called The Berkeley Suite – 350 capacity – which I adore doing. We play from open to close, 11 to 4AM. It is profitable and hopefully sustainable, but while it does make money, money is not our motivation for doing it. I think that is the true definition of underground; doing it for the love, not the money. People who come to events like that can sense that and hopefully that leads to loyalty and longevity.

I was also wondering if you have any thoughts on the current “role” of the DJ? With digital giving the DJ a lot more free time – no physical record box to rifle through, no taking 12s in and out of their sleeves, etc. – do you think that this has changed? Do you think that audiences are expecting not just to dance, but to also watch some kind of performance? 

Some audiences for sure. I’ve got used to being visible to large audiences but I’m  naturally quite shy so would personally rather be heard and not seen. But, as mentioned earlier I’ve got used to playing big events and I do like to dance while I DJ and sometimes will get excited, but I’m just not going to do all the exaggerated performative bullshit a lot of DJs do.

I have no issue at all with DJs using the sync function. I think it’s a good skill to have to be able to mix, and fun of course, but one thing I do think it has led to is a lot of seamless and slightly boring mixing. Audiences are not used to hearing mistakes anymore. I still play a lot of vinyl and it`s not unusual for the record to jump. Most audiences don’t know what’s going on when that happens and just think whoever is playing must be an idiot. The upside is that mixing in vinyl often brings a totally different energy audiences are not used to, which they discover that they enjoy. There’s no relying on boring endless looping with vinyl, and mixing records is I guess a ‘performance’, or at least for those in the audience who are close enough to see it. Often I see people look astonished when they see that we’re playing records.

One thing that I would like to say is that I constantly see people of my generation saying that clubs are shit now, that they are just full of people with their cameras out, posing about. I’m sure there are lots of places like that but it’s so far from my experience. Lots of clubs frown on people filming and taking photos but also, I go to lots of places where people are just too busy getting down to have their phones out. I’m constantly blown away by how great the atmosphere is at so many gigs that I play. The sound is better than it has ever been, the lighting is better than it has ever been, people are more open-minded about music than they have ever been. Club spaces and festivals are generally safer than they have ever been, with people way more concerned with each other’s welfare than back in the day. 

We played in Berlin last night, outside, from 8 to 10PM. It was a glorious, sunny evening and the venue was packed and the atmosphere electric. I remember one of the very first times I played in Berlin I played my eternal fave, Love Can’t Turn Around by Farley Jackmaster Funk to a totally packed room and it literally cleared the whole dancefloor. People were shouting abuse at me and making gestures that indicated they wanted to cut my throat. I’m not exaggerating. I played it last night and it went off. It was joyous and life affirming and up there with any dancefloor reaction that I ever saw. It’s often a bit risky deviating from house and techno in Berlin, but I finished the set with two `70s Tina Turner tracks – this is just after she left us. People lost it. It was truly a moment. I think if anyone was pessimistic about clubbing or dance music and then had been there they’d have thought it was the best of times. So yes, there is lots wrong with DJ culture and there always has been but there is so much right currently too and that’s what keeps me doing it and keeps it being such a seductive thing to do after three and a half decades.

If audiences are expecting a performance, do you think that this has also resulted in a change in the type of people who set out to become DJs?

I think we live in an era where we have the most diverse, knowledgeable and passionate DJs that there have ever been, who are doing it for all the right reasons but, we also have a huge number of people doing it for all the wrong reasons – money, ego, fame. Money, ego and fame have always been big motivators for people to start DJing, but social media has definitely exacerbated that infinitely. I’m often embarrassed to tell people what I do for a living as they will often make instant assumptions about what I do and what my life is like based on all the idiot DJs out there who play lowest common denominator shite, who have little passion and even less flair for the artform, but know how to strike a great pose and love the credibility and other perks that come from success… but, most of the bad stuff is in a world that I don’t operate in so it doesn’t impact on me, and I rarely come into contact with it at all. So, I don’t let it bother me too much.

When you DJ, do you still DJ with Jonnie Wilkes?

95% of my gigs are with Jonnie. It is only ever Optimo if it is both of us. I do a handful of solo gigs every year too.

Is it your first time playing at Wild Wood Disco this year?

It is! Exciting! I’ve heard lots of good things as I have some friends who live locally who have been a few times.

Other than the Wild Wood Disco, what else, DJ-wise, do you have coming up?

In the next couple of months, some festival gigs, a short North American tour, gigs in Berlin, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Ibiza and Croatia, and our own regular party in Glasgow. Oh, and Glastonbury too.

Can you give me any clues as to what your set a Wild Wood will contain? 

I have zero idea. I truly never know until we start playing and sense the vibe. I can say with near certainty it will contain a good energy.

While I’ve got you here, I’ve got some sort of “bonus” questions. I wanted to tell you how much I loved the Mount Florida project. The track Static Airways is incredibly moving, and is now ever more poignant. Could you tell me about the ideas behind the project, and where that piece of spoken prose comes from? 

I’m very happy to hear that. This is going way back, as that was made almost a quarter of a century ago! Mount Florida was my introduction to making music. I`d released an album on my then label Pi Recordings by this really talented Glasgow guy, MP Lancaster, who was a decade older than me, and who had an amazing studio set-up. He suggested that we try to do some music together, and we met up religiously, one day a week for a couple of years. We ended up with this body of work that we felt could work as an album. I sent a copy to Matador, as I thought that they would be the ideal home for it and they signed us. It turned out that we were only the second act that they’d ever signed from an unsolicited demo. We did 3 E.P.s and an album with them and then MP had a work injury and we couldn’t do any more music for well over a year, and when we could again we seemed to have lost our way a bit, and it just faded away. At the point in time we started working together, which was a little before Optimo started, I was a bit bored with most then current club music and was going to see a lot of bands again, a hobby that I’ve subsequently kept up. Mount Florida was an attempt to combine my love for bands and DJing along with MP’s massive synth set-up and deep programming knowledge. It was all over the place and in hindsight I can sense it was perhaps too undefined for most people’s taste – the story of my life! – but there is a lot of it that I’m still very proud of.

Static Airways is one of my favourites. The words are by Noam Chomsky, from Manufacturing Consent. I was obsessed by that documentary and by Noam Chomsky in general at this point in time and felt his words were very prescient. I listened to it again recently and it is even more prescient today! We got permission to use his words and had this renowned Scottish actor, Robert David MacDonald re-voice them.

I guess I’m just being even more nosey but I was wondering if you’re still in touch with James McDonald  – Ege Bam Yasi  – and Andy “Brainstorm” Watson, and if you had any idea what they are up to? 

I am still in touch with Andy fairly regularly. Andy did some lightning and projections at our Watching Trees festival last summer. He does that that for a living, and is also a partner in a venue in Edinburgh. He doesn’t DJ very often sadly. I say sadly because he’s one of the all time greats but just doesn’t seem to have a desire to do it any more. 

I’ve not heard from James / Mr Egg for a few years but do encounter him online from time to time. I’m not sure if Ege Bam Yasi is still gigging or not. I recently started playing his 1992 track Bubble out again recently, which still sounds so good.

You can catch Keith and Optimo as part of the star-studded line-up at the Wild Wood Disco Festival, taking place at The Woodland Glade, Horseheath Racecourse, in Linton, Cambridgeshire, between the 16th and 18th of June. You can find more details, and purchase tickets, here.

In the meantime, you can check out Optimo Music’s incredible back catalogue over at Bandcamp.