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12"
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OT 033EP
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Optimo Trax reaches no. 33, the final number in the series (although reserving the right to return at some point). The last release is a three-track EP from Montreal's Solitary Dancer that ends the label's run with a distinctly non-4/4 feel. Solitary Dancer on the EP: "Recordings inspired by archetypes existing within a hypothetical matriarchal society and how that may pertain to our present day reality."
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OT 032EP
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Tel Aviv's Kalbata provides three different versions of one track. Kalbat: "I went to Ethiopia in the beginning of 2017 to record musicians. The most memorable one was Mulugeta Teshome who plays the washint flute on this record. It's a traditional Ethiopian flute made out of wood, and Mulugeta came to the studio carrying a whole bag of them, each one in a different key. . . . I ended up taking the tracks a lot further with the three cuts on the record but really it all started that day, in a small studio shack in Addis Ababa."
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OT 031EP
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Germany's Mathias Schober, head honcho of Berlin's Lossless label, on the release: "'In A Certain Way' features a 808ish beat with a main sequence coming from a tiny monophon synth called Atmegatron . . . 'But What Rules Are Made For' is the same setup but the sequence is a 101 and so are all the washed out FX synths. On 'Is To Break The' I went a different route, I had the dub, delayed stabs synth first as I was messin' with my Moog and a Space Echo..."
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OT 030EP
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Optimo Trax' 30th release celebrates two 30 year anniversaries: the original release date of "Rejekto!" and 30 years since Twitch started DJing. From Germany, written and produced by Ra-Hen and Talla 2XLC, Robotiko Rejekto's "Rejekto!" was the inaugural release on the Techno Drome International label. With a powerful and seductive Romanian vocal, it has latterly been categorized as EBM/Techno, but at the time didn't really fit into any convenient genre. Twitch called it electro-beat. Featuring the original "Perfekto!" and "U.S. Dub" versions, this reissue also includes a slo-mo cover version by Frenchbloke. Sleeve designed by Katie Shambles and Andrew Beltran.
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OT 029EP
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Newcastle-born, Mexico-based Man Power debuts on Optimo Trax with two psycho-sonic missives cuts, extra loud for optimum sound system performance. Man Power on the release: "Both tracks sound different, but they're both from the same place in as much as they represent a conscious effort by me to strip back some of unnecessary niceties in my music and really sharpen my focus on what makes people dance without crossing the fine line of what makes me sound like me."
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OT 028EP
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Originally released in Japan in 2015 on DJ Emma's Nitelist Music as part of its Acid EP series. JD Twitch scored a copy and both tracks became firm favorites in his sets. Twitch was kindly granted permission to reissue it on Optimo Trax. Hiroshi Watanabe's "Infinity Sign" is a hypno ecstatic acid piano-tingling monolith. Kuniyuki's "Acid Air" is a slow building organic percussive acid freak-out that will cause a freak-out on the floor. It is hard to do anything with a 303 that is interesting these days but both the tracks on this 12" are 100% club classic.
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OT 026EP
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Italy's Underspreche presents Invito Alla Danza Part 1, the first of two parts of an album split across two four-track EPs. Optimo Trax considers it some of the most nuanced and advanced music they have ever released. There are several dancefloor destroyers here but also music for more developed/leading-edge floors too, as well as some music simply designed to make one's mind melt. Super-advanced, organic sampling, inspired vocalizations, acute psychedelic modular sequences, forward-thinking drum programming.
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OT 027EP
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Italy's Underspreche presents Invito Alla Danza Part 2, the second of two parts of an album split across two four-track EPs. Optimo Trax considers it some of the most nuanced and advanced music they have ever released. There are several dancefloor destroyers here but also music for more developed/leading-edge floors too, as well as some music simply designed to make one's mind melt. Super-advanced, organic sampling, inspired vocalizations, acute psychedelic modular sequences, forward-thinking drum programming.
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OT 025EP
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Boot & Tax are back with their first new music of 2016. Four tracks of spangled, idiosyncratic, woozily spacious and slightly off-kilter music that could only have been made by these two Milanese maestros.
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OT 024EP
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Yet more Italians on Optimo Trax! Josè Manuel delivers four unique exotic, fourth world, tribal slabs of ritual music. "The Great Beast in Outer Space" is actually an Andrew Liles track that Jose has completely reworked and sprinkled his magic on. "Folklore" is fourth world exotica reimagined for late night dance rites. "Ritual" is exactly what the title says it is. "Sisi" leaves the dancefloor completely and even though Optimo Trax is 100% aimed at DJs, this was simply too lovely to leave off.
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OT 023EP
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From Oporto, Portugal but now a resident in London, Trikk presents a four-track EP for Optimo Trax titled Several. Each of the tracks is a dubbed-out, percussive, hypnotic gem with advanced production and while not dub per se, the use of dub effects is up there with the finest studio experimentation. All four tracks have been extensively club tested and may cause subtle pandemonium. Watch out for the slow-down in "Modo Ritmico".
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OT 022EP
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After the success of their debut split EP with Muslimgauze (OT 018EP), the southern Italian male/female duo Underspreche return to Optimo Trax with Subtterrenus. Three tracks of deliciously psychedelic advanced techno grooves filled with subtle syncopations and head melting sound design. First release in the Optimo Trax color scheme.
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OT 021EP
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Powerdance is a collective formed by Luke Solomon and Nick Maurer formed as a reaction to bland soulless dance music that seems to infiltrating nightclubs the world over. Nick Maurer was one half of the then prolific Greens Keepers. This EP for Optimo Trax features the wigged epically funkoid gem "Mysterious Space Plane". Who doesn't like songs about space? On the other side is the modern hyper jacking "More Fire". Alongside these are a reprise of "Mysterious Space Plane" and a bonus beats of "More Fire" for those DJs who like to get creative with their mixing.
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OT 020EP
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Celebrating our 20th release, Glasgow's Dave Clark returns to Optimo Trax as Sparky. He was responsible for the third release on the label as LUMA which featured the club smash "John Broadwood." All four tracks here are certified dancefloor winners; from the reach for the lasers, kickless "Things Fall Apart" through the synth rhapsodies of "Black Swan" and "My Prophet", climaxing in the jacking "Seven Daggers."
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OT 019EP
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Fabrizio Rat presents an EP constructed entirely from acoustic piano and drum machine. His unique sound design is particularly impressive in a time when so much techno simply follows a blueprint instead of pushing boundaries. Fabrizio Rat: "I developed a personal sonic world on the acoustic piano transforming it into a synthesizer and a groove machine with DIY techniques and objects. Pianist of Cabaret Contemporain (electro-bio) and Magnetic Ensemble playing festivals and venues throughout France and Europe, Canada and USA. Other projects are La Machina (solo, with a prepared piano and a drum machine), Jukebox, Barber Mouse and Luna Maze."
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OT 018EP
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Limited repress. In the mid-'90s, Bryn Jones aka Muslimgauze sent JD Twitch of Optimo CD-Rs of unreleased material, including the track featured here in slightly edited form (along with Victor Shan and Gerd Janson's "Rave Mix"). Jones dated the track to 1985, which means that he pre-empted UK hardcore by about five years -- especially remarkable given his use of tape loops instead of samplers. Mysterious male/female Italian duo Underspreche debut on the AA-side. "Flowers from the Lake" samples (with permission) field recordings of the Kenyan Mijikenda tribes (HJR 068CD/LP, 2013); the exquisite hypno-techno of "Naked" exudes a warmth rare in modern techno.
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OT 017EP
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When The Golden Filter sent Optimo Music six tracks to choose from for the 2015 PS1103 12" (OM 029EP), the label decided to take all of them and release the two more DJ-friendly tracks on Optimo Trax. "Heavy" (it is!) and "Outimacy" are both tried and tested in the clubs; two wild electronic signals with advanced synthetic sound design and monumental production. Morgan Hammer's "Arrogant Bastard" is a modern update of the Belgian electrobeat sound with Morgan's wildly deadpan vocals. Her "Killer Nighter" is a year-round delight, but surely destined to be a future Halloween standard.
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OT 016EP
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This EP, featuring tracks from Glasgow, London, New York, and Edinburgh, opens with the broken, percussive, spine-tingling "Endless Plains," the debut of Glasgow DJ Beta. London's L/F/D/M, who delivered the first release on Optimo Trax, returns under the modified moniker Love's Flaccid Disco Muscle "3am at the Aqua Disco" -- bass heaviness with an almost exotica-style lead line. The eight-minute depth-charge "Culture Full Circle" by New York's Alex Burkat (now relocated to Philadelphia) features a mutated sample from a legendary reggae track before Modini (Neil Landstrumm and Alan Parley) close with "Ghost Seducer," which delivers bass, dub, and bleeps, 21st-century-style.
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OT 015EP
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"For some it might be Kraftwerk, but for me, my favourite electronic pioneers are probably Australia's Severed Heads. They had several big club hits, the dub versions of which crossed over into the nascent house scene. 'Greater Reward (Dub)' (1988) has possibly the most beautiful piano in the history of dance music... I've slightly rearranged it for DJ use but haven't added anything. Side A includes the majestic original. 'Big Car (Crash Dub)' (1991) had possibly the heaviest kick drum I'd ever heard... 'All Saints Day (Saints Day Dub)' (1989) features future-looking sound design and hypno bass." --JD Twitch
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OT 014EP
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Optimo Trax is delighted to welcome prodigious Glasgow producer Alex Smoke. Mr. Smoke is one of the most advanced sound designers in modern electronic music who has demonstrated his talents across all sorts of releases in all sorts of not-easily-defined areas of music. He also knows how to make advanced electronic music that will work on a dancefloor, as all four of these stunners amply demonstrate. No filler here. Four tracks to make you stand up strong and proud. A-HEM.
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OT 013EP
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Wick Blaze is a producer from a small island in the Baltic Sea. He started producing in early 2013 and since then his devotion to different shapes of house music has grown. Looking for a deeper touch in music, he tends to keep the beats raw yet diverse to achieve a sound worth giving a second listen. Inspired by the flourishing house scene, Wick Blaze is working on ideas that challenge him to find fresh sounds and push the limits of his creation. Evoking the right mood is all what his music is about. Deep, wayward, and utterly groove-notic.
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OT 012EP
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Glasgow's Mia Dora are responsible for the last Optimo Trax EP of 2014. This release came about after they sent the track "Un.sub" to Twitch earlier in the year. He went nuts over its cowbell delirium bump n' grind and it has been a constant secret weapon in his sets all year. When he found out it wasn't scheduled for release, a notion formed for Optimo Trax to put it out and a few months later the Mia Dora guys delivered three other tracks to form an EP, including a track in collaboration with long time Glasgow doyen, Mash.
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OT 011EP
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This Illumination track from 1998 is great fun to mix with. It was only when the master arrived that the realization came that for all these years it has been played at the wrong speed! The vinyl version is now pressed so it can be played at either 45 or 33. Mr. Marvin's "I Want You" came out on R&S offshoot Global Cuts in 1993. This is a hypnotic tribal gem with seemingly random, panning vocal interjections. Lastly is Fuel's "Rigid," which came out on the UK label SCR in 1995. The industrial-strength, stroboscopic snare tattoos will have you reaching out for the smoke machine-button every time.
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OT 010EP
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Vocals on A1 and A2 by Rachel. Vocals on AA1 by Pete Simpson. Crooked Man is Richard Barratt from Sheffield, better known as Parrot. He played house music in Sheffield back in the '80s, had a top 10 hit in '88 as part of Funky Worm, collaborated with Richard H. Kirk on the seminal Sweet Exorcist releases on Warp and had another top-10 hit in the '90s as part of The All Seeing I. Retiring from DJing, he started putting out 12" singles as Crooked Man. Song-based and devoid of house music vocal clichés, endlessly hypnotic and with razor sharp production.
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OT 009EP
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A very talented DJ and producer, Jasper James is at the forefront of the current generation of Glaswegian dance ambassadors. He has received lots of props from Skream, amongst many others, and Twitch was delighted to have the opportunity to release his first record. On his debut EP, Jasper unleashes three cuts of his signature bump n' grind atmospheric house music, all swinging drums and heavy bass lines. The EP is rounded off with a remix by his dad DJ Harri with the help of another Glasgow (via South Africa) stalwart, Esa, as Hillhead Young Team.
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