So just over a year ago we started to run a label of the month feature, except after duly crowning Thisisnotanexit our first ever label of the month we all got a bit busy and well things haven’t really quietened down since. The result being that like some grizzled prize fighter TINAE have clung onto their award for nearly 13 months now.
But all things must past and so finally we are ready to pass the laurels onto another label and hopefully make this a more regular feature, so ladies and gentlemen of the blogosphere may I present to you our brand new label of the month… Optimo Music!
The Glasgow based label run by JD Twitch of Optimo DJ and club night has long been a favourite of ours, with an ear for unearthing long neglected gems and working with some of the best new acts around. Recent highlights have included the brilliant Green Door Kids album, a collection of post punk/no wave disco classics laid down by a group of ten year olds, and Chris Carter of Throbbing Gristle’s long unavailable The Spaces Between.
Twitch was kind enough to put together a mixtape of Optimo Music highlights and we caught up with him to talk about the label, the clubnight and the joy of vinyl.
The next release on Optimo Music is the (R E A L L O V E) 12″ by Factory Floor, complete with an Optimo remix on the b-side (hint… it’s amazing). If you’re in London this weekend then you can catch Twitch DJ’ing alongside Factory Floor at Dollop‘s Citipost Warehouse night.
It’s almost twelve months ago now you called time on the regular Optimo night at the Sub CLub, are you happy you ended it when you did?
Yes. It was the right time to call a halt to proceedings. I’m always getting asked if I miss it and in all honesty, I don’t. I loved every minute of it and it went out with a glorious bang but running it as a weekly night was such a huge commitment and took up so much of my time that it prevented me taking on many other projects that I now have time to work on. I definitely feel more creatively fulfilled now that I have time to work on other activities.
The night has been replaced by Hung Up which you still play at but has a lot more guests featuring, how’s that been going? Is it odd to know that other people, although friends, are up there taking your place behind the decks?
It has gone exactly as we hoped. It is a very low key night with no expectations, at least from us. It has gone back to being a hobby and while we never do anything without putting a of of love into it, it takes up very little of our time. Jonnie still does all the design and I book people to play (mostly friends of ours) but spend maybe an hour a week doing this as opposed to the half a week i would spend working on Optimo when it was weekly.
Sometimes it’s busy, sometimes not but it feels like it is back to the natural order of what a Sunday night should be rather than the freak anomaly that was Optimo. It’s nice still to have a Glasgow outlet to play at once a month as it’s a test laboratory for when I dj elsewhere. Having a residency, even an occasional one is a total blessing to a dj (in my opinion). I love that other people are playing there and getting a bit of a taste of Sunday night djing through one of the best sound systems out there.
So the reason why we’re chatting is we’ve made Optimo Music our new label of the month (probably year too). We’ve been big fans of the label since it started but it definitely feels like in the past few releases it has really hit its stride. Do you think you needed to end the night to put more focus into the label?
Thanks! I actually probably spent more time on the label while Optimo was still running as back then I took care of almost every aspect of it but now that it is run in association with Kompakt, they do most of the slog.
I run the label with my friend Jill Mingo who takes care of a lot of the administration and does all the offline press and I have Andy Ingle doing the online press while my girlfriend does all the design. My roll is really A & R and liaising with Kompakt.
Most of the time I spend working on the label is devoted to listening to music that is sent to me to be considered for release, trying to track down the copyright holders of music I want to reissue and trying to plant the seed of an idea for a potential release with people I’d like to work with.
It’s great to see you still putting in the extra time and money and indeed hassle to press up releases on vinyl, is that something that’s important to the label to keep doing?
Absolutely. I have put out a cd on the label in the past but in all honesty I loathe them, so now the label is strictly vinyl and digital. I’m not a vinyl purist but records have given me so much joy throughout my life and are such an alluring and wonderful sounding format that releasing them is a pure pleasure I am fortunate to be able to indulge as a result of my dj gigs. If a time came when it wasn’t financially feasible to release vinyl I’d call it a day as the idea of running a digital label isn’t very appealing to me.
And so this week you’re releasing the new EP from Factory Floor, which is clearly a hugely exciting thing and feels like a perfect fit, is that it for you and them now or is this the start of a longer relationship?
It’s actually out the first week in April. It is strictly a one-off release. The idea for the release came from them and I jumped at the chance to put it out and have a bash at remixing them. I don’t really have the infrastructure to take an artist beyond a one off release but I’d love to work with them again in some context.
What else do you have lined up on the label that you can tell us about?
The idea is to operate on two levels; release new music and make available again forgotten gems from the past. At the moment I’m working on the latter and trying to get the rights to several possible reissues but i’d rather not mention them as it is always a worry that someone will do a bootleg release thus rendering all the time and effort put into a project a waste of time.
With regard to new music, I put out things as and when something really excites me rather than just putting out records for the sake of putting out records. I like to release records that have a bit of a story to them and have a couple of projects I’m nurturing which might come to fruition in two weeks or two years. I’m in no hurry.
Finally, horrible question, If you can choose one, what has been your favourite release so far
Very hard to answer and I’d have to choose two. Chris Carter’s record was something I had dreamt of putting out for a very, very long time as the original version had brought me so much joy over the years. It was immensely satisfying that it was so well received.
My other favourite would be from the first phase of Optimo Music when I was putting out records by Scottish artists. I put out a 10″ by Dollskabeat called “Zodiac Rising”. Dolskabeat is Lucy Ross from Edinburgh who is supremely talented and wrote, played and produced the record herself.
It was a rather fraught release, sold fairly poorly and for contractual reasons is sadly no longer available but I am so proud to have put it out.
It is such a bewitching song referencing so much from the past that I love while also sounding thoroughly modern. In some alternative universe it was a global number one. I hope the world hears more from her one day.
