Glasgow-based institution and globetrotting party / festival phenomenon Optimo are celebrating two and a half decades of dynamite dancefloor eclecticism. Marking the anniversary with a couple of high quality comps, released in cahoots with Above Board. These collections are’nt designed to be “greatest hits” packages, but more snapshots of the wide variety of records that have spun since the opening night, at The Sub Club, in November 1997. Over the last ten years or so, I’ve had a couple of cracking chats with Optimo’s co-founder JD Twitch, and while I’ve never actually attended the event, I do have a few favourites of my own from the catalogues of its DJs and associated labels.

Ege Bam Yasi / Variation / T&B Vinyl / 1993

T&B stands for “Twitch & Brainstrom” who were the resident DJs at Pure, Edinburgh’s temple of techno and house. Variation was a staple at Andrew Weatherall’s Sabresonic dos, held in the dungeon-like Happy Jax. I undoubtedly bagged my copy at FatCat. At this point the icon was in the process of transitioning from E-ed up eclectic cross-fader enthusiast to the seamless technician that he’s now remembered as, and due to its big breakdowns I think Variation was pretty easy to mix in and out of. Segues with the Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia spring to mind. It’s funny but in that environment of racing trance and tables forged from upturned oil drums, this used to feel like a “chillout” track, as it bubbled and gurgled away, but it’s actually something crazy like 130 BPM. The high hats sound like steam and the whistles lend it a live feel. Mr. Ege, aka James MacDonald, is still going strong, throwing parties in Edinburgh, and releasing industrial strengh acid on his label, Flat Life.

Out There: A Thread Through Time / Pi Recordings / 1994

This is a weighty 4 LP set, released on Pi Recordings, whichwas T&B’s experimental off-shoot. Those looking for Pure floor-fillers would have been left scratching their heads, as Twitch concentrated here on industrial and occult electronica. Collecting nuggets from names such as Coil, Mika Vainio, and Zoviet France. I picked mine up at Ambient Soho for the grand sum of £13.50 (it still has the price sticker to prove it), and most of the artists were a mystery to me. I probably paid up because of the two Weatherall tracks, co-produced with Dave Hedger, under the alias Lords Of Afford, but I was also aware of Chris + Cosey’s Dancing Ghosts. This was a “holy grail”, talked of in hushed tones, since it’s possibly the first pairing of a TR-808 and TB-303. Leading those of us who hadn’t heard it to believe that it laid the blueprints for acid house way back in `84. It is, in fact, ethereal and, appropriately, haunting, full of spectral voices and synths, rather than banging, but is still definitely the set’s standout. 

Other highlights include Twitch & Brainstorm’s own 101 Beats In Sodom – which sort of foreshadows Om Unit’s Acid Dub Studies – and Black Dog’s Bumfluff, which – for completists – is only available on this comp. Optimo Music would work with Chris Carter further, later reissuing Moonlight and tracks from his tape, The Space Between.

Mount Florida / Static Airwaves / Matador / 2000

Mount Florida took its name from a working class area of Glasgow (where Alan McGee and Bobby Gillespie both grew up), and was a collaboration between Twitch and Mike Lancaster. Static Airwaves is an ambient moment from their LP, Arrived Phoenix, all pianos, morse code s.o.s. signals, and weeping strings. Its focus, though, is playwright Robert David MacDonald reading text by Noam Chomski. Prose that sadly accurately predicts exactly, as a species, where we seem to be right now. Capitalism, consumerism, and greed, pursued to their disastrous conclusions.

Sonic Assassins  / Fumble In The Bungle / Flashback / 2009

Not the Hawkwind side project, but another pseudonym of Twitch / Keith McIvor. Fumble In The Bungle is a brilliant, beefed-up, extension of Johnny Wakelin’s tribal tribute to Muhammed Ali, a track that in its OG form was a hit on both the Afro / Cosmic and Balearic scenes. Other Twitch edits that, for me, particularly stand out can be found on an excellent E.P. of Boccaccio hits, issued as This Is Belgium.

Golden Teacher / Bells From The Deep End / Optimo Music / 2013

Golden Teacher were a 6-strong crew, and their hybrid of post-punk funk and raw, jacking house just blew me away. Seemingly taking their cues from the Liquid Liquid tune that gave Optimo their name, and Ron Hardy at Chicago’s Music Box. Double Bump and Golden Chalice were my favs from their first E.P. Dennis Bovell signed up for a serious, seismic dub mix of Like A Hawk from their second.

Building on that Blackbeard connection, in 2016 Optimo also issued a 12 containing three Bovell rarities. Smouche is loved-up and tropical, similar to his stuff with Weapon Of Peace. Heaven is upbeat dub-disco, still heavily Caribbean spiced. Escape Goat Dub is a dangerous deconstruction of Garland Jeffreys, that transforms the rock and blues veteran into something like Ranking Dread meets Sly & Robbie meets Scientist.

Peter Gordon & Factory Floor / CSide / Optimo Music / 2013

Veteran New York saxophonist / composer Peter Gordon collaborated with Factory Floor, at the time still a 3-piece, on a couple of tracks that appeared on an Optimo Music 12 in 2013. Beachcombing is the A-side, but it’s the B-side, CSide, that floats my boat. Gordon’s sax skronking over a slowly mounting modern motorik beat. Synths rippling like sunlight surfing on choppy waves. 

Gordon famously fronted a rotating assembly of experimental musicians / composers called The Love Of Life Orchestra, whose line-up included Rhys Chatham, Arthur Russell and Peter Zummo. Optimo also reissued Zummo’s solo debut, Zummo With An X, which contains the 20-minute masterpiece, Song IV. A meditation with Bill Ruyle on tabla, Russell on cello, and Zummo’s trombone.

Tafi All Stars / Deka Wor Wor / Autonomous Africa / 2017

Autonomous Africa was a project, initiated by Twitch, that brought together Scottish and African musicians, and the results were used to raise funds for the Mtandika Mission in Tanzania and the Tafi Atome Community Studio in Ghana. This charitable enterprise ran from 2012 to 2020, and my favourite release is Tafi All Stars’ Outside Rhythm. A tip from Illustrator / curator Matt Sewell, this perfectly mixes dubby electronics with organic percussion and cute group sing along chants.

Miracle Steps / Optimo Music / 2017

This is an amazing compilation. A journey. A trip. Put together by Twitch and Fergus Clark, of 12th Isle Records, it effortlessly intertwines the old and the new, ancient instruments with modern machines, while also spotlighting avant grade and perhaps obscure artists. Carefully cherrypicking the challenging to craft an accessible whole. Taking its title from a Jon Hassell track – lifted from 1986’s Power Spot – the album seamlessly segues across three decades, from 1983, to the then present day.  A perfect primer for the folks involved, personal highlights include Sussan Deyhim & Richard Horowitz’s Desert Equations – a slow, traditional trance dance of Moroccan ney, procession percussion and bewitching siren – and Rapoon’s tabla and psychedelic sufi treatments on The Same River Once. Also, for me, the music of Jon Keliehor was a complete revelation. The American, but Glasgow-based, composer’s Subcontinent gently, serenely, like sunrise on a savannah, mixes Hassell’s fourth world fantasy ethnology with the modal swing of spiritual jazz.  

Another name on Miracle Steps is O Yuki Conjugate, a Nottingham-based industrial / ambient collective, founded in 1982 by Roger Horberry and Andrew Hulme. They’re probably best known for their 1987 album Into Dark Water – since it contains the track Ba-makala, which was a closely kept secret, a “cover up”, championed on the Belgian new beat scene. In 2021 Optimo released an E.P. of remixed selections from their Sunchemical set, reworks by Charles Webster, François Tétaz, and OYC themselves. Sunchemical itself is a beautiful, blissful introspective drift of hand drums, chimes, ethereal swells and dolphin dialogue. Big piano chords and arcs, fanfares of distant, distorted reeds punctate Bismuth’s tribal ritual rattling.

Marlui Miranda / Tchori Tchori / Optimo Music & Selva Discos / 2018

Taciana  / Tudo Faz Sentido / Optimo Music & Selva Discos / 2019

These are two 12s from the Brasingles series, which saw Optimo team-up with Augusto Olivani’s Selva Discos. On Vol. 1 Rio native Joutro Mundo renders Marlui Miranda’s traditional folk song, Tchori Tchori, a playful, flickering piece of Balearic house. Machined marimba dancing delicately beneath the chants. Vol. 4 rescued Mitar Subotic, aka Suba / Rex Ilusivii’s stunning remix of Taciana Barros’ Tudo Faz Sentido. The Serbian producer serving up `90s pop dance to rival William Orbit / Strange Cargo. Full of hooks, Steve Hillage guitar, and old school breaks and beats.

Optimo 25 is out now on Above Board Projects.