What the original tune? Its evading me ...

This song is so good! Any hints on what it is? Thanks!

@marsany-bus: "False Awakening" by Ian Hicks. Will be out on vinyl on the So Low label early 2017.

the last 45 sublime minutes !! I have enjoyed it ......cryzy synth and goes on and on, we go!!  eres un maquina  :)*

Optimo

Serendipity is a wonderful thing, and when we looked ahead in the guestmix calendar, a certain number jumped out. 303. A number synonymous with the roots of house music, which presented itself with a (somewhat obvious) opportunity to get an old friend into the series... a man who saw it all unfold before his very eyes in the 90's, and who himself excels with the execution of mixes with an underlying concept. 

Welcome to JD Twitch's ode to the Roland 303.

"The Roland 303 is a little silver box of electronics that accidentally produced the squelching sound that became the foundation of Acid House. Pioneered circa 1987 in Chicago, Acid House exploded around the world and that sound spread through electronic music creating myriad variants.

Fundamentally the 303 is instantly recognisable by its squelch sound. This squelch can be euphoric, hypnotic, joyous, uplifting, sad, dark, cheesy, silly, scary, ridiculous, psychedelic, beautiful and anthemic. This mix aims to showcase many of these shades of the squelch. It is not the greatest hits of the 303, nor is it a collection of wilfully obscure forgotten 303 jams, it's just simply a paean to the majesty and never ending sonic possibilities of the squelch. Viva Acid!"

Artist: @twitch

SlothBoogie Guestmix #303 - JD Twitch

Nicely nestled amongst Sammy Dee, Moopie & Magda Bytnerowicz, I was asked to replace Grandmaster Zip (Perlon) for the party hosted by Lifeworld & Spincycle. I warmed up for Sammy Dee, and this is what that sounded like.

Live @ the party

@boursin
A recording of fka boursin's set at Opera Sunday last January (2024), under the disco ball in Spanners 7-9pm before Lucien 

One from deeper in the archive, it's been 16 months since this happened. 

Sharing this marks the beginning of a timeline of releases from previous Opera Sunday parties spanning the last year before the next event on the 18th May.

fka boursin @ Opera Sunday - Spanners LDN [28.01.24]

Nosedrip at Garage, Horst Arts & Music 2025

Black represents the void, finality, and the devouring force of unchecked ambition. This track is dark and ominous, signaling the cataclysmic climax of the story. The Obsidian Crystal acts as a gateway, unleashing forces beyond human comprehension. The demonic chanting embodies the irreversible descent into chaos, as the civilization collapses under its own hubris. The once-glorious ritual has become a curse, and the world is swallowed by darkness.

The Obsidian Gate

A section from my set at Magic Waves Summer Festival, Berlin, July 2015,  featuring the more accessible synth end of the kind of stuff I play at my occasional So Low night in Glasgow. So Low 2 x LP compilation in hand screen printed sleeve coming February 2016 via Vinyl Factory.

JD Twitch Live at Magic Waves Summer Festival, Berlin 2015 (Part 1 - So Low Synth NRG set)

Aveidt storming through with the second set of the night, warming it up nicely for The Hacker. Enjoy!

Aveidt @ Body Heat XVI [08.08.25]

| GOOD MORNING SKYLAB | w/ Danny | 05.09.2025

@jeffreysfire 
This Smoke mix is by no one other then Jeffrey Sfire an household name in the elecontronic music- and queerscene. Originally from suburban Detroit. Behind and in front of the scene pushing sounds and providing platforms. 

As a producer he had a lot of projects: Sfire (with SOPHIE), Looky Looky, and Pushing Movies with releases on labels such as Dark Entries, Cocktail D’Amore Music and Ultramajic. 

With this Smoke mix Jeffrey evokes a timeless contrast between melancholy, heartache, loving and hopeful at the same time. It might be the balance of life or it suits the feeling of the nearing end of summer which is just as finitely as good and bad times. 
 
Thanks for this beautiful journey Jeffrey<3

Jeffrey Sfire - Smoke #25

The End Of The Surprise

Part 2 of my Magic Waves, Berlin set. I had a sense that by this point in the night the crowd were, uh, feelin' kinda high, so it maybe reflects that a bit. It's a tad more all over the place and a little less doomy than the first part.

JD Twitch Live at Magic Waves Summer Festival, Berlin 2015 (Part 2 - So High set)

A deeply singular mix from one of Europe's undiscovered talents.

RA.421 Lena Willikens

Late 2016 will see the launch of the So Low label which will complement the occasional nights of the same name in Glasgow. The label will focus on releasing music that veers towards the "Synth" side of the So Low sound. That may seem a rather vague term so this mix aims to show the sort of thing that might be, and includes a couple of the first releases. The label will be run by JD Twitch in cooperation with Iona Fortune, Becky Marshall and Katie Shambles. There will be reissues of lost Synth gems alongside brand new Synth music. The first 5 releases are currently in the process of being put together. All releases will be vinyl / digital and distribution will be through Kompakt. 

This is a CD length mix recorded live on two turntables plus a laptop with minimal post recording editing. Available as a 320 mp3 download.

As an aside, I am often asked why there are no mixes on my Soundcloud that are typical of the club sets I most frequently play. There's no real reason but I tend not to ever record those types of sets and feel live recordings make more sense in the moment rather than after the fact. I will however endeavour to upload some sets in that vein at some point.

JD Twitch - So Low So Synth (Live At The Solar Lodge, Glasgow 23 05 2016)

Read the feature: https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/2815

JD Twitch (Optimo) live warmup - Sub Club In Residence mix

Live dj mix of Muslimgauze music recorded at Unsound, Krakow, October 22nd 2016. Apart from the occasional use of some FX, this is 100% the music of Muslimgauze with nothing added. Any glitches, distortions, weird audio anomalies, dramatic changes in volume etc. are all part of Muslimguaze’s unique production process. Available to download as a 320 mp3.

Tracklist -

The Taliban

Eleven Minarets Part 10

Arab Jerusalem

Tozeur Palm

Choke Noose Of Gold Silk

Bandit Queen

Noose Of Gold Silk

Azeri Jab

Azzazin 1

Zindabad

Bazoft Rope

Ishmael Tongue

Herod-1

Free From A Veil

Untitled 1985

Purdah Zealot

Azzazin 6

An Abyssinian Who Could Kiss Fine

Khan Younis

Negative Of Ethiopia

The Eternal Illusionist Of Old Baghdad

Baghdad

Najibullah Headless

JD Twitch plays Muslimgauze, Unsound, Krakow 22/10/2016

The full version of the text below can be read here - thequietus.com/articles/22925-optimo-20-mix-listen

As well as 2017 being the 20th anniversary of Optimo it is also 30 years since I started DJ’ing, in Edinburgh in the summer of 1987.

It had never crossed my mind to be a DJ and I fell into it quite by accident. Myself and several friends were devoted attendees at a sub basement club in Edinburgh’s Cowgate called The Backroom that started in 1986. It was the first club where we truly felt at home musically and that was frequented by people we felt comfortable being around. The resident DJs, Bill & Bobby, had been playing around Edinburgh for years and had phenomenal taste and abilities to play exactly the right records in the right order at the right time. After a year or so of religiously attending, my good friend Macky noticed a poster announcing they were looking to audition people to play the first two hours of the night. Macky suggested we audition and initially I point blank refused, partly because the idea terrified me and partly because it held little appeal to me at that time. He persisted and eventually I agreed being fairly confident that our total lack of experience would be so apparent that we would never get the gig. Over the next few weeks they auditioned various people by letting them play the start of the night and somehow we were picked to be the new warm up DJs. Yikes!

So began an uninterrupted trend of being part of a DJ duo, and every Saturday night I would get the bus through from Glasgow where I had now moved to study and Macky and I would take turns to play a few records each to a generally completely disinterested audience. Our fee for playing was £25 and I would get £15 as I had to travel through from Glasgow and Macky took a tenner. Once I realised how much I was enjoying doing it I would have happily played for free.

So, what was I playing back then? Well, I kept quite a detailed diary in those days and would write down the records I played each week. From those diary entries I have put together a mix of what I might have played in my first ever set had I had the technical knowledge or ability to actually be a mixing DJ at that time. Though the music played was very diverse, we were all particularly into records with advanced production that sounded state of the art at the time and we used the term Electrobeat to describe the core sound that we were really into. The term didn’t catch on and neither did the music. The club was very popular but the people who came generally did not like weird records they did not know, were quite averse to drum machines and I’d often hear people grumbling about us playing “that drum machine crap”, a scenario which is of course in complete reversal 30 years on.

So, here are 30 tracks mixed together that were the sound of my late teenage years that I tried to turn people on to 30 years ago. Most of the records in this mix would lie dormant on my shelves for the next 20 years but in the last 10 years or so a surprising number have found their way back into my sets and finally found an appreciative audience and sound as good, if not better today than they did 30 years ago.

There is no tracklisting but I don’t think there is anything wildly obscure or rare in the mix. I could have pretended I was playing lots of lesser known records back then, but this is a 100% genuine round up of what I was actually playing in 1987. The two tracks without a drum machine are the only ones which were anything like bonafide dancefloor hits for me at The Backroom at the time. I have also included one (loop from a) track my then co-DJ, Macky used to play lots and also a Bill & Bobby classic. The mix is available to download as a 320 mp3. For a bit of bonus fun I have included one track that wasn’t released until 1988. If anyone can identify which one it is they will win a prize.

JD Twitch - 1987 reimagined (30 year anniversary mix)

I started DJ'ing in 1987, am 50% of Optimo (Espacio) and I also run the Optimo Music record label.


“We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.”
Mark Vonnegut

Email - kmcivor@me.com

Optimo Music Soundcloud here - https://soundcloud.com/optimo-music

DJ bookings (worldwide) - caroline@spunoutagency.com



Press - optimopr@mac.com


Discography - http://www.optimo.co.uk/discography/

JD Twitch - So Low So Synth (Live At The Solar Lodge, Glasgow 23 05 2016)

JD Twitch

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