Preview: No Way Back with Optimo
Saturday, February 11, No Way Back returns to Monarch with JD Twitch and JG Wilkes as Optimo. For many years now, Twitch and Wilkes have been known for being a couple of the most tasteful DJs who blur genre lines for the sake of playing good, fun music.
It all began for the two in 1997 when they started DJing together as Optimo (Espacio)—the same year that they began their weekly club night at Sub Club in Glasgow. Twitch and Wilkes came together with years of DJ experience and the common goal to break away from seamless four/four house and techno for riskier, spunkier sets. From 1990 to 2000, Twitch ran the first techno club night in Edinburgh called Pure, but it came to an end shortly after he banded with Wilkes. Many were sad to see it go, but Twitch and Wilkes were ready to refocus and set their hearts on Optimo.
Every Sunday, Wilkes and Twitch held their ground behind the decks, playing out dance tracks of all varieties. This sort of no-hesitation approach gave the club night personality incomparable to any others. Genres like post-punk, electro, funk and reggae were all fair game with the appropriate discretion to nurture the right mood as they prepared the crowd for their special guests. Acts like LCD Soundsystem, Chicks on Speed, ESG, Whitehouse, and Richie Hawtin are just a few of the many well-known artists who stopped by Optimo before Twitch and Wilkes shut it down in April 2010.
Twitch and Wilkes freed up their time for other projects, such as their “no genre, no dogma” label they set up a year before known as Optimo Music. They also have more time to travel around the world and share their broad, but not necessarily indiscriminate, tastes. It would be difficult to predicate what they would have in store for SF, so it would be best to just check them out for yourself this Saturday at Monarch.
In the meantime, check out some of their mixes on their webpage here.
Optimo plays No Way Back with support from residents Conor and Solar. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased here.
