JD Twitch compiles So Low
The Vinyl Factory will release a compilation of early ‘80s synth, industrial and cold wave classics picked by the Optimo man.
Some may view the compilation as a dying artform in an age where the internet grants you the freedom to playlist to your heart’s content. However, there is a fine art to a good compilation and it’s a process J D Twitch, aka Optimo Music overseer Keith McIvor, has clearly enjoyed over the years despite the legal difficulties he’s recently faced. Earlier this year Sony Music put a rather costly kibosh on McIvor’s plans to issue a compilation of post-punk curios under the title Now That’s What I Call DIY! (Cult Classics From The Post-Punk Era 1978-82), citing a rather spurious similarity to its long-running Now That’s What I Call Music! series. McIvor’s response was pitch perfect; renaming the compilation [Cease & Desist] DIY! (Cult Classics From The Post-Punk Era 1978-82).
February will see McIvor team up with central London stronghold The Vinyl Factory for a compilation themed around the music you might hear him play at irregular Glasgow residency So Low. Taking the same name, the 16-track compilation looks like a perfectly pitched balance of the familiar (Front 242, Throbbing Gristle, Hard Corps, Tuxedomoon) and more obscure bands. A press release quotes McIvor explaining the idea behind So Low and this subsequent compilation:
“So Low is an occasional night at The Poetry Club in Glasgow where I play some of the music I played when I first started DJing back in 1987,” McIvor explains. “At that time the audience I played to mostly loathed what I was playing and rarely danced but then shortly after, when House music arrived I found a different audience who actually liked to dance.
In response to my wife’s deep love of this music and requests from some friends who were too young to hear it in a club at the time, or indeed were not even born when most of this music was made, I was persuaded to revisit a lot of records I still loved but rarely played out, and So Low was born. It has an extremely enthusiastic audience, a joyous atmosphere and is the antithesis of what a club in Scotland playing this music nearly 30 years ago would have been like.”
In addition to the So Low compilation, The Vinyl Factory and McIvor have coaxed Diagonal co-founder Powell and Helena Hauff into contributing remixes for a complementary 12″, but the full details on that are not confirmed. For an idea of what to expect from So Low we suggest you listen to this recording of JD Twitch playing at Magic Waves in Berlin earlier this year.
The Vinyl Factory will release So Low on February 16.
Tracklisting:
1. John Bender – Victims of a Victimless Crime
2. Hunting Lodge – Tribal Warning Shot
3. Throbbing Gristle – Discipline (Berlin)
4. Front 242 – Kampfbereit
5. The Klinik – Moving Hands
6. P1/E – 49 Second Romance
7. Colin Potter – Power
8. Eric Random – Fade In
9. Conrad Schnitzler & Wolfgang Seidel Meissner – Fabrik
10. Gerry & The Holograms – Gerry & The Holograms
11. Chris & Cosey – Passion
12. Hard Corps – Porte Bonheur (Remix)
13. Holger Hiller – Das Feuer
14. Siglo XX – Dreams of Pleasure
15. Clair Obscur – Toundra
16. Tuxedomoon – No Tears