Glasweigen DJ stalwarts "Optimo" return for their 3rd Australian tour. Starting as a humble little club night at Glasgow's SUB CLUB, Optimo has grown over the past 10 years producing a number of highly acclaimed mix CDs fast becoming instant collectors items! Previous Melbourne shows have sold out & the parties themselves have become stuff of legends, and it’s easy to see why. Optimo are easily two of the most exciting DJs in the world right now, combining every know genre known to man as well as a slew of their own edit's and productions in what turns into one mother-effing DJ set. Believe us when we say it's something not to be missed.
Optimo (Espacio) is a club night in Glasgow that was started in November 1997 at The Sub Club by dj's JD Twitch and JG Wilkes. Both these djs were tired with their firmly rooted techno-based nights and decided to form a new, more satisfying and creative club.
Both the founding djs at Optimo came to the formation of the club from backgrounds in programmed beats, and what was generally know as “techno” at the time. Twitch was a resident at the Edinburgh based night “Pure” while Wilkes was based at the Glasgow event "Knuklehead" (later My Machines). Both were disillusioned with the musical limitations which their respective residencies provided, and decided they needed a change to try something which would be both totally different, and totally unrestrictive in terms of what they could decide to play.
The best description of the club, and the nature of the night, is through the origin of the name. “Optimo” is a song (released in 1983) by Liquid Liquid. The historical and cultural origins of Liquid Liquid would provide the inspiration for the ethos of the club; a return to the spirit of early 80's New York where many nascent scenes were emerging (hip hop, punk, no-wave, disco, gay, straight, art) all separate from each other but all united in a totally open attitude to experimentation and unequivocal challenge to creative boundaries or conventions.
Guided and inspired by this ethos, Optimo quickly became an infamous Glasgow clubbing institution, with parties renowned for their outrageous disregard for genres or musical restrictions, where the rhythmic soundtrack of the night could (and often did) strike out into territories far beyond the normal boundaries of a club night.
As the club developed and its reputation grew the Optimo djs made connections with many emerging artsts – Peaches, LCD Sound System, The Rapture, Franz Ferdinand - providing many of them with their first shows in the UK. The most important of these new alliances was with Paris based Label Tigersushi, who gave the club an opportunity to release their first offical mix CD – How To Kill The DJ Vol. 2.
The release of this mix, and the critical acclaim that followed, would catapult the duo into the international gigging circuit and over the next few years would see them travel across the world, taking the Optimo party aesthetic to England, Ireland, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, France Spain, Holland Belgium Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia, Greece, Bratislava, Czech Republic, Serbia, USA, Canada, Brasil, South Africa, Japan and Australia.
Optimo have raised the benchmark for what is expected in terms of a nights clubbing, a maverick determination demonstrated by release such as “How To Kill The DJ Vol. 2” (Tigersushi), "Psyche-Out" (Eskimo Recordings) and most recently with their contribution to the Sub Club's "20 Years Underground" (Soma) double CD release.
However, Optimo is not just about the music, its heart is the people that come to the club in their hometown of Glasgow. And when traveling to another club – no matter where that might be – the ethos remains solid. As no two audiences are the same, therefore no two sets are the same, no two mixes identical, everything springs from the spirit of the crowd and the rhythm of the moment.
We love your ears!