2020 - 04

https://optimomusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-light-ep

Feon returns with a second EP, perfecting his psychedelic sound. He says -

'The Light’ is a continuation of the theme of sun worship from the last EP. The sun, or light can be seen as symbolic of the light of conscious awareness, and has been used as such by human cultures throughout the ages, from the earliest hunter gatherers right up to the present day. But of course, where there is light there is also darkness, as all that is light emerges from the primordial darkness, the eternal emptiness or non-being, that which preceded the creation of our own universe. This darkness finds its corollary in the human unconscious, which on the personal level contains our own repressed emotions, and on the deeper collective level is the dark chaotic source of all that is creative in humanity. This collective level is connected to our "primitive" and animal evolutionary past, and as such contains much wisdom that we, in modern times, have lost. Hence the second track ‘The Wisdom Of The Animal’, which is a more hypnotic, physical track, and an intentionally evocative sonic call to access your own animal, physical selves and the bodily wisdom that is contained within that experience. On ‘Gotta Slay’ I perform an extract from a James Massiah poem called ‘Functioning’ which I came across at an art show exploring mental health amongst the creative community. With a repetitive acid line, 808s and bongos, I have repurposed it for a smoky and sweaty basement. After all that darkness there is ‘Risin’, with a sample from Faust and my own singing, there comes some kind of salvation.

Available from all good digital outlets from October 25th 2019.

Optimo Music Digital Danceforce 016 - Feon - The Light EP

@theusmago – the man, the myth, the legend from Mexico City. Leaving behind his characteristic synthwave / dark disco sound, the Duro label cofounder delivers a new experience where modular synths and Amazonian rhythms blend seamlessly with a type of laidback psychedelic techno music. All of this thanks to a huge amount of spices added to glue everything together just nice and deliciously. The Carrier People EP features three heating original tracks and a remix interpretation by unmistakable Curses.

Carrier Pople

Carrier People

Theus Mago - Carrier People

Alffie - Miyo [Preview]

From the "Poptimo" side of the Optimo sound, the first in a series of weekend mixes of music for partying, in isolation. Max tempo - 111bpm. Available to download as a 320 mp3.

JD Twitch - (Isolating) House Party mix 1

First in a new series of recordings from home during the isolation period.  Includes tracks by Anton Klint, Golden Bug, In Fields, Pletnev, Thomass Jackson, Paranoid London, Andrew Weatherall and a few old Clouded Vision releases.

ISOLATION STATION 001

CENTER YOURSELF is a podcast series curated by Robert Johnson. Each episode is created by one of our regulars—some are made for this occasion and some are hand-picked from the club's own archive.

@orson-wells
@41ISSA

Recorded in their home studio in March 2020.

Center Yourself 03 – O-Wells & 41ISSA

March 2020, locked in with my vinyls...let's share

Tim Paris March 2020 MIX B

Maher Daniel and Ricardo Villalobos is a minimal match made in heaven and following on from previous collaborations, the pair have once again joined forces for another EP on Daniel's The Other Side imprint.

What to expect? Well, extended ear-worms basically. Tracks that burrow deep with glitchy elements teased and introduced throughout. 

Both cuts are going to transfix any dancefloor but here we have the premiere of 'Changed', 11 minutes of majestic minimal house.

Get your headphones on and let this one writhe and wriggle into your brain. But beware, if you do, it's not going to leave any time soon.

Premiere: Ricardo Villalobos & Maher Daniel 'Changed'

Live At Robert Johnson deploys a very true to its school release by one of Brussels finest, @DC Salas. „The Complicated Art of Dreaming“ tells a four-track tale of joyous and airy nights on the dancefloor. A few euphoric sixteenths and a few quirky acid lines, lush pads and irresistible drums—it’s all about giving you that driving and energetic feeling, with more than one genuine hands in the air floorfiller at your disposal.

Things are what you expect of LARJ: Driving high quality tracks with an emotional twist, a nod to the luscious moments on the wooden dancefloor.

DC Salas is thirtysomething year old Diego Cortez Salas, a skilled talent with peruvian origins hailing from Brussels. His four-track EP „The Complicated Art of Dreaming“ delves into classic territories, an eclectic amalgamation of his musical inspirations in 15 years of digging and DJing. A regular DJ at C11 and Kiosk Radio both in Brussels, Diego also co-runs Biologic Records with his mate Abstraxion since 2014.

DC Salas - Keep Them Closer - Snippet

Here is the 3rd in a series of 'mixes' I intend to make over the coming weeks of music that I find particularly tranquil. I will try to make these one hour sessions filled with beautiful music that is helpful and calming to listen to while we get through this extraordinarily hard time. It is also available as a 320 download. 

Tracklisting -

Popol Vuh - Aguirre I
Peter Gabriel - With This Love (Choir)
Nowicki - Ostrich Dust Bath
Dennis Young - Voices Within
Alice Coltrane - Om Shanti
Reinhard Flatischler - Angkor Wat (intro)
Elodie Lauten - Prelude
Virginia Astley - A Summer Long Since Passed
Henri Texier - Luce D'Alba (edit)
Tony Hymas - Lullaby
Tomita - Clair De Lune
Kid 606 - Temptation 
Elodie Lauten - Flow
Ozo - Anambra

JD Twitch - Tranquility Mix 3

Here is an improvised jam session we had while recording with Aladdin at the Red Bull studio in Paris in 2014
As far as i can remember are playing,Eat Gas and Giani Caserotto,(guitar),Fabrizio Rat(prepared piano)the ex girfriend of Nicolas Ker(singer of Aladdin)played the cello,which i'm very sorry:i have forgotten her name, David Neeman on the vibraphone and me Gilbert at the drum machine(CR78+Moog delayMoog synth and production.
Some field recording  of the passover seder at my uncle too at the end,which i added later on..

LIVE IMPROVISATION  DURING ALADDIN ALBUM RECORDING.2014 IN PARIS.

The system fizzed and flashed, electrical currents buzzed and vibrated and his body was alive with a throbbing pulse which kept him awake and preoccupied. His heart was a microchip, a special type of man. He wondered what it was to be human and not machine, to be something more than a framework. His software told him what to feel and think but there were times in which even that short circuited and caused internal dispute. Perhaps it would be best if some great virus touched down upon his portals and plagued his very core. 

Agents Of Time are set to release a new EP on longstanding German label Kompakt, an imprint which requires little introduction. They deliver an eclectic mix of club ready tracks alongside one particularly interesting downtempo excursion which we bring you today.

Music Made Paradise

PREMIERE: Agents Of Time - My Heart Is A Microchip [Kompakt]

For this month program we bring you music by the label Mannequin Records, launched in Rome, Italy by Alessandro Adriani in 2008. Now operating from Berlin, Germany, Mannequin is spreading cold waves for the melancholic with music by the labels boss Adriani, likeminded producers like Jasss, Black Merlin, De Sang Froid or Greek producer June, as well as archival work by electronic, industrial and wave veteran’s like Bourbonese Qualk from England, Italian synth queen Doris Norton or Berlin’s infamous Din A Testbild. 

For Carhartt WIP radio Alessandro Adriani prepared a mix, that introduces a deep digging selection from the extensive Mannequin Records catalogue, featuring artist like Arnaud Rebotini, Techno Bert, Group A or Caroline K.

As ever, we also sat down with this month’s host, posing a series of questions on his label, vision and work. Check the full feature at https://www.carhartt-wip.com/journal/music.

tracklist:
1.: June - Dialogues (Interlude I) - MNQ 134
2.: Arnaud Rebotini - The Glove and The Whip - MNQ 144
3.: Amato & Adriani - The Language of Numbers - MNQ 137
4.: June - First Age - MNQ 134
5.: Techno Bert - Neue Dimensionen (Instrumental) - MNQ 094
6.: Chrome Corpse - Into-ition - MNQ 141 
7.: Le Syndicat Electronique - Tape du Pied - MNQ 145
8.: System 01 - Any Reality Is An Opinion - MNQ 140
9.: System 01 - Paralysed Force - MNQ 140
10.: Prequel Tapes - Twisted - MNQ 142
11.: Dona - La Crudeltà Delle Grandi Città - MNQ 138
12.: Dissemblance - Emutiex - MNQ 136
13.: Police des moeurs - Eternel Retour - MNQ 143
14.: Sam De La Rosa - Who Are You Today - MNQ 135
15.: Desolation Colony - The Lower Formations - MNQ 151
16.: group A - Almost, almost - MNQ 126
17.: Caroline K - Don't Believe It's Over - MNQ 130

https://www.carhartt-wip.com/journal/music/radio/2020/04/label-feature-mannequin-records

Carhartt WIP Radio April 2020: Mannequin Records Radio Show

ROTCIV Re-Imagination of "Le Macho Du Mambo"
soundcloud.com/rotciv
facebook.com/rotciv1978

Artwork by Daniel Rajcsanyi

Free Download

Neon - Le Macho Du Mambo (ROTCIV Re - Edit)

https://optimomusic.bandcamp.com/album/in-heaven-we-are-pre-release-single

New Zealand’s brightest new star, Vanessa Worm returns to Optimo Music with the first single from her upcoming album, “Vanessa 77”, which was due out in May but has been postponed until later in the year due to current uncertainties over vinyl releases.

This track is FIRE and had been road tested to phenomenal response. Vanessa 100% has her own thing going on and has been tearing up the Australian and New Zealand club and festival circuit with her incendiary live performances.

We asked her for some words about this song, which feel particularly relevant to our current predicament - 

"To me, In Heaven We Are is almost a kind of Mantra. I speak to myself and therefore to you, to the collective & to the Earth. Asking us to see heaven, to feel heaven, to ask you what your version of Heaven on Earth is, and to encourage us to live that, breathe that and be that. In order to bring light, new creation and love to this earth, ultimately to aid in the Healing of the Earth and the people within it."

Out on Optimo Music Digital Danceforce April 10th 2020

Optimo Music Digital Danceforce 025 - Vanessa Worm - In Heaven We Are

Following up on Man Power's challenge to remix one of his new tracks with constraints and in a minimum amount of time, here's Sam's take on it.
Drawing a first line took roughly three hours, with a Moog, a Juno and the original stems. 
This second version needed roughly the same time to fine tune the arrangement, fit a couple more synth lines, do some quick automations. 
Mixing phase will come next after some time off.

Man Power - It's not a competition (Samuel Berdah remix) - Draft 2

CENTER YOURSELF is a podcast series curated by Robert Johnson. Each episode is created by one of our regulars—some are made for this occasion and some are hand-picked from the club's own archive.

@andrew-weatherall
@roman-fluegel

In loving memory, we are happy to share this excerpt from Andrew Weatherall & Roman Flügel's all-nighter recorded at Robert Johnson in 2017.

Center Yourself 05 – Andrew Weatherall & Roman Flügel

@Andrew-Weatherall's EP "Pamela #1" will be released through Pamela Records on April 17th. More info: bit.ly/blacksquarebeggarsopera

Andrew Weatherall - The Moton 5 (Snippet)

Luke Solomon DJ Set - Corsica Studios - 14.2.20

First in an occasional series of hour long selctions of Rock 'n Roll 7"s. This was originally one of my NTS Radio shows so some of you might have heard it before, but here it is without voiceover. All but one track is from the 1950s, and apologies for the sound quality on some of them but several are original era 7"s that have had a long life and a lot of plays. Not, mixed, just segued. Available to download as a 320mp3.

2020 - 04

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