Give the people what they want, or what you think they need? That's the
choice facing every DJ, and the result isn't always pretty, as anyone
still fielding requests for "In Da Club" could attest. So fine, forget
50 — pull out that sick, obscure Manzel reissue, and grimace when the
room clears out.
Somehow the boys from Optimo, a weekly party at Glasgow's Sub Club,
inverted the equation: They play what they want, and the people need it
so bad that they'll wait in a line around the block. Not bad for a
playlist that could be shouted out at the end of LCD Soundsystem's
"Losing My Edge." (The Crrrrramps! Gang of Four, the Loose Joints!
Suicide! ... Os!-Mu!-tantes!!)
How to Kill the DJ [Part Two], second in a series from the
French label Tigersushi (the first was mixed by Black Strobe's Ivan
Smagghe), is Optimo's stab at reproducing those parties on plastic. The
result is the most mind-blowing mix CD since 2 Many DJs' As Heard on
Radio Soulwax Vol. 2. Where Soulwax spliced pop with pop, or gave
pop an edge (Salt N Pepa vs. Stooges is their best track ever),
Optimo's blends are music geek squared. But their drug-punk electronics
and analog raunch — "Nice n' Sleazy" by The Stranglers seems to be a
mission statement — are the perfect palate cleanser for mash-up's
current excess of cheese.
One key to this über-eclectic set's success is that the mixing skills
of JG Wilkes ("a grungey slackey Irishman," reads their PR sheet) and JD Twitch ("a Scottish
ex-techno DJ with a weird taste for camp rockabilly outfits") are as
great as the songs they selected. The opening guitars from The
Rapture's "Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks" stab away on top of
the 20th Century Steel Band's rare-groove classic "Heaven and Hell." Old-school electro (Hashim's "Rocking the Planet") rubs up against jazz
fusion (Miroslav Vitous' "New York City"), leading to a Soft Cell track
("Sex Dwarf") that practically requires a shower afterward. The disc
even takes an unlikely detour into gospel with Larry Levan's remix of
the Joubert Singers' "Stand on the Word" — not to be confused with the
burping bass lines, go-go percussion and funky spelling lessons
("talkin' 'bout W-O-R and a Deeee") of the Junkyard Band's "The Word,"
which also makes an appearance.
That's a lot of ground to cover in an hour, and for such an ambitious
mix, the number of missteps is shockingly low. Yes, playing Ricardo
Villalobos' two best tracks at the same time takes some balls,
but that doesn't mean "Dexter" and "Easy Lee" sound particularly good
together. (And what's with the Chris Isaak slide guitar? Eek.) No
matter, though — all the bad thoughts melt away after Suicide's "Dream
Baby Dream" gets layered over the top.
In addition to all the musical highs, a dozen little bonus details make
it clear that these guys love what they do. At one point in the mix,
the Langley Schools Music Project version of "Good Vibrations" — the
Beach Boys song, sung by 1970s grade-schoolers — provokes a "what
the?!" reaction as the beat grinds to a halt. Turns out the move is
purely practical: Wilkes' set is ending, Twitch is getting out his
first record, and besides, didn't everyone need a breather? The duo are
pictured on the cover in a clever rip-off of Andy Warhol's "Double
Elvis" — not particularly surprising, since modern music in general,
and dance music in particular, are awash in Warhol's pet themes of
appropriation, repetition, and decadence. To provide that "you are
there" ambience, the mix's first track features an irate cell-phone
call complaining about line-jumpers, and the second-to-last is credited
to the "Optimo End of the Night Choir," with a three-word lyric: "One
more tune! One more tune!" (Has anyone ever really spun for a crowd
this cool, or is it a little bit of myth-making? At any rate, in a coda
worthy of the closing scene of Wes Anderson's "Rushmore," the shouters
are rewarded with Love's "Everybody's Got to Live.")
Bringing the total to an insane 60 tracks, the set's unmixed second
disc offers mood music to start or end the night (Angelo Badalamenti,
Lee Hazlewood) as well as complete versions of some hard-to-find tracks
that were used on disc one, like "A Minha Menina" by Os Mutantes. The
more shameless among us might take this as an opportunity to grab a
secret weapon or two for the ol' "check out this new stuff I'm
listening to" CD-R to pass around. Whoops — now all my friends know
where I got that killer Mo-Dettes track. ...
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