crooked man is richard barratt from sheffield, better known as parrot. he was first off the blocks playing 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.

optimo trax presents a 4-track ep from germanys mathias schober, head honcho of berlin’s lossless label. as always we prefer to let our artists do the talking. heres what mathias has to say about this release - the idea behind all tracks on the ep was a simple setup of drums and one synth that would do a main sequence/sound, yet theres a lot of detail in all of them. in a certain way features a 808ish beat with a main sequence coming from a tiny monophon synth called atmegatron - 8bit love, it turned out being much more music than i thought it would be when i set everything up. 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 them i went a different route, i had the dub, delayed stabs synth first as i was messin with my moog and a space echo - which btw is used on every single track i release, if you haven’t noticed yet. so i was trying to build something around those stabs in order to fit the track to the others and so i ended up with another sequence coming from my moog. as there was still space on the record, i decided to add an ambient version of is to break them, i love the ambience on this track. i hope that my love for dub sounds is obvious enough on these tracks. happy i found such an excellent home for the ep!

optimo trax 30 celebrates a double 30 year anniversary: the original release date of “rejekto” and 30 years since twitch started dj’ing. in 1987, twitch, who wasn’t known as twitch yet, picked up a copy of “rejekto” at glasgow’s then numero uno import shop, 23rd precinct. he was smitten.

newcastle-born, mexico-based man power debuts on optimo trax with two psychasonic missives cut extra loud for optimum sound system performance. we asked man power for some words about this release and he told us - -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.”

boot & tax are back. after two 12inches for optimo trax and an album on optimo music they return to optimo trax with their first new music of the year, just before it ends. four tracks of spangled, idiosyncratic, woozily spacious and slightly off kilter music that could only have been made by these two milanese maestros. as ever on optimo trax a quadruple a side where all tracks share equal billing.

from oporto, portugal but now resident in london, trikk presents a 4-track ep for optimo trax. each of the tracks is a dubbed-out, percussive hypno gem with advanced production and while not dub per se, the use of dub effects is up there with the finest ja studio experimentation. all 4 tracks have been extensively club tested and may cause subtle pandemonium. dj tip : watch out for the slow down in modo ritmico!

theres a bit of a story to side a. in 1996, jd twitch released a 12inch by manchesters bryn jones aka muslimgauze on his then label pi recordings.

the first split ep on optimo trax!

optimo trax 16 is a various artists ep featuring tracks from glasgow, london, new york & edinburgh.

for some it might be kraftwerk, but for me, my favourite electronic pioneers are probably australias severed heads. they were so far ahead of the game that they had to invent a lot of the technology they used. inspired, playful, never boring and always sonically brilliant they pushed at the frontiers of electronic music more than most. by the late 80s they were pursuing a slightly more polished course and made a series of records that had the potential to reach a much larger audience. possibly because of their name they never quite managed that, but they had several big club hits, the dub versions of which crossed over into the nascent house scene. i am honoured that i am able to make the dubs of those three 12 inches from 1988 - 1990 available again.

deep, wayward and utterly groove-notic. optimo trax is starting off 2015 the right way…

optimo trax 11 is all about the drums.

think of this release a quadruple a side. none of these will fail on the dancefloor.

on his debut ep, jasper unleashes three cuts of his signature bump n grind atmospheric house music.

these milanese maestros deliver four dance floor delights in their own inimitable and distinctive style

optimo trax releases michele minninis tupolev love ep

luca lozano, owner of klasse recordings presents this majestic 4-track ep on optimo trax. inspired by the past but sounding the antithesis of retro. in his own words.... the optimo trax ep was born out of a time when i was listening to a lot of old bleep house and rave, early 90s uk stuff. growing up in sheffield i was lucky enough to spend some time in warp records when it was still a record store and being around this music and the people that made it must have somehow embedded itself into my psyche. listening to pirate radio stations like fantasy fm as a teenager helped shape my musical interests as they are today and i guess this ep is somehow a reflection of that education, i wanted to make a collection of music that sounded like it was related to a certain place and time and in effect confirm my own identity within its context.

optimo trax is an offshoot label of optimo music for tracks aimed at djs/dancefloors. yes, we know there are too many record labels already, but we felt an overriding desire to start another one as so much music that didnt seem quite right for optimo music (i.e. music that was specifically designed for dancing) kept coming our way. like the parent label, optimo trax will release music by new artists and excavate forgotten classics.

the next two optimo trax releases are from milan. this first one is four hot tracks from two self-effacing milanese maestros. *acido* is already shaping up to be a club classic and never fails to cause a commotion, it has been thoroughly road tested throughout summer 2013. the other tracks cover all idiosyncratic bases from high grade sleaze funk to spaghetti western-infused, low-slung house.

optimo trax is an offshoot label of optimo music for tracks aimed at djs/dancefloors. yes, we know there are too many record labels already, but we felt an overriding desire to start another one as so much music that didnt seem quite right for optimo music (i.e. music that was specifically designed for dancing) kept coming our way. like the parent label, optimo trax will release music by new artists and excavate forgotten classics. luma is a project by dave clark from glasgow. dave had his first release as a member of state of flux in 1993 on t&b vinyl, the label twitch ran with his dj partner of that era, brainstorm. twitch and dave have continued to work together in various ways ever since. he has released records as truffle club, and as big ned on optimo music as well as working with twitch from 2005 - 2010 remixing a plethora of artists under the optimo (espacio) moniker before fatherhood necessitated him focusing on changing nappies rather than programming synths. dave has also recorded under various aliases for r&s, numbers, stuffrecords, dissident and wireblock. the twentieth anniversary of that first release seemed a fitting date for dave to unleash his monster new club music alter ego, luma on optimo trax. twitch thinks dave is the best producer in scotland and endlessly weeps into his gin and tonics about how unprolific dave is, so was ecstatic when the 4 killer tracks were delivered that make up this third optimo trax ep. these have been thoroughly road tested over the last few months at gigs around the world.

optimo trax is an offshoot label of optimo music for tracks aimed at djs/dancefloors. yes, we know there are too many record labels already, but we felt an overriding desire to start another one as so much music that didn t seem quite right for optimo music (i.e. music that was specifically designed for dancing) kept coming our way. like the parent label, optimo trax will release music by new artists and excavate forgotten classics. all four tracks were recorded in 1992. staples of jd twitchs dj sets at the timem and all tracks he still plays to this day.

optimo trax is an offshoot label of optimo music for tracks aimed at djs/dancefloors