In 2025 it’s difficult to imagine a DJ mix carrying cultural weight across decades. But back in 2004, as the digital shift was only in it’s early days, things seeped into the culture differently.

Something was shifting in music in the early 2000s. Even as house and techno were still producing regular moments of brilliance, there was a feeling that the centre was loosening — that something else was needed, though it was difficult to quite articulate what that “something” might be.

One of the first records perhaps to tap into it was 2ManyDJ’s – As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt. 2. At the time, it felt like a revelation, and lots of it still stands up today. But my relationship with it cooled quite quickly. The originality that made it so vital was diluted by a tidal wave of mash-ups and as their popularity spread to the mainstream their DJ sets began to lean on increasingly frictionless crowd-pleasers.

Then something unanticipated arrived in the post: a promo CD with a sleeve riffing on Andy Warhol’s Double Elvis (1963). To borrow from a meme, the cover had my curiosity, but the music had my full attention.

There was something wonderfully gritty and unpolished about it all, a through-line that linked the lo-fi post-punk records I had been listening to with the stripped-back pulse of Basic Channel and the more obtuse corners of disco. It felt as if this music had emerged from the same decaying assembly line.

The John Anthony Mix of John Carpenter’s The End (a record I’d recently liberated from my dad’s record collection) sat alongside Soft Cell’s Sex Dwarf and Liaisons Dangereuses’ Los Niños del Parque. Then Carl Craig’s Tres Demented Demented Drums appeared, a track I’d always assumed was a relatively private obsession.

Their lack of fear in dropping the tempo and changing tone, reflecting their DJ sets, was something that helped set them apart in an age of relative BPM rigidity.

The mix also included tracks like Chris Isaak’s Wicked Games (segueing into Suicides’ Dream Baby Dream) something I still wouldn’t trust myself to attempt.

Of course, by no means I am saying were they the first DJ duo playing an ‘eclectic’ selection, but for my taste they did it better than anyone else.

In this pre-social media era, Kill the DJ Pt. 2 became Optimo’s calling card, helping to carry the legend of their Optimo (Espacio) night far beyond the confines of the Sub Club and Glasgow, ensuring their passports in near-constant use from that point on.

Again, it’s really tricky to recall a time before algorithms become the gatekeeper of culture (I had just set-up a MySpace page around this time). I could easily veer into a rant at this point about how that particular technology has turned on us but that’s one for another day.

Printed media, radio and word of mouth were how things spread, with CDRs and MiniDiscs physically changing hands. It seemed to work just fine.

I’ve largely sidestepped CD 2 here. An unmixed calmer affair. Its selections range from Angelo Badalamenti to Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra + The Meters and The Flirtations.

This better reflects the early section of their Optimo (Espacio) nights where they would set the mood before the momentum takes over later in the evening.

If you’re coming to Optimo cold then How To Kill the DJ Pt.2 remains the best place to begin. Beyond that, here’s some further listening:

Optimo Present: Psyche Out (2005)
Walkabout (2006)
BBC Essential Mix (2006)
Sleepwalk (2008)

Having listened to the mix many times whilst writing this post, the closing track by Love with it’s ‘Everybody’s gotta live, and everybody’s gonna die’ refrain can’t help but take on new weight - with the loss of Optimo co-founder JD Twitch aka Keith McIvor earlier this year.

There’s already been many wonderful tributes to Keith, far more eloquent than anything I could hope to write, only to say that whenever we crossed paths, both Keith and Jonnie radiated an unmatched kindness and humility, that sat at odds with the ego-driven ecosystem of dance music. (I have lots of stories!)

But, Optimo endures. JG Wilkes remains its standard-bearer, still carrying the torch. In the last few months of 2025, taking on a relentless DJ schedule which concludes at Fidelity Studio for a (now sold out) party on New Year’s Eve.

I’m instinctively hostile to nostalgia. Doubly so in dance music—but Optimo were, and remain far from a greatest-hits exercise.
Every time I hear Jonnie play, there’s still a flurry of unsuccessful ‘Hey Google, what song is this?’ (formerly Shazam!) and this mix just felt like a musical moment worth revisiting so i’ll give myself a pass, just this once.