fabric 52: Optimo (Espacio) [DJ Mix]

Optimo is no more, but as Bob Dylan (or was it Alec Empire?) once said, death is not the end. True, the Scottish DJ duo's long-running Glasgow club night of the same name was put on ice this past April, but Optimo-the-partnership soldiers on into the second decade of the 21st-century with remixes, a label, and yes, new mix CDs. So don't go into Fabric 52 thinking it's some kind of valedictory, or a summing up of Optimo's decade-plus journey across club culture's fringe. Instead, in keeping with the restlessness that continues to define their career, it's another sideways leap away from their previous mixes.

Fabric 52's perhaps the most techno-centric mix of Optimo's career. On the other hand, it's probably the only techno mix of the year whose Discogs.com entry features a prominent credit for a Chapman stick player. The wild in-track edits and multiple song mash-ups seem to be a thing of the past, but Optimo still range widely across the history of synthetic club music. Fabric 52 moves from the warped proto-techno "pop" perversions of Fad Gadget to some bracingly crude early acid house, from the 1990s days of German high minimalism to a smidge of 21st-century UK funky.

And as always, Optimo slip and slide between subgenres and decades with a startling ease. Some of that's down to the track selection. Much of the first half of Fabric 52 sounds straight from the days of acid wash and polka dots and smiley faces. Without researching the tracklist, it's tough to tell the difference between true old-school acid house and modern producers trying to ape the limited technology of the mid-80s. And when a mix features a 21st-century act called the Tyrell Corporation, which takes its name from Blade Runner and sounds like a revved-up (and shameless) homage to classic New Order, you know to expect a certain amount of synth-centric classicism.

But classicist as they might get, Optimo never go for the easy transition, and they also refuse to sacrifice momentum in order to show off their skill. That's why Fabric 52 gets much more interesting in its second half, when the duo finally shakes free of the safe pulse of sequenced rhythm for something a little more varied. It's easy enough to blend new-school synth-pop with old-school synth-pop. But somehow Optimo make that Tyrell Corporation track sound natural as it emerges from a Latin-tinged broken beat cover of a Fela Kuti tune.

Now, the staggered rhythm of broken beat doesn't mix easily with anything, even other broken beat tunes, but especially anything 4/4. I'm sure there's a technical explanation for how Optimo pulled it off, maybe even a simple one. All I know is that as you're listening it's unexpected and thrilling and full of weirdly euphoric energy for such a moody mix-- basically all the things you expect at this point from an Optimo CD. I have to admit I was a little worried about Fabric 52 in the beginning. The first 35 minutes or so seemed to be a little too eager to pay simple homage to the enduring power of techno's pulse. But it turned out that it's one of the few recent mixes that needs its 72-minute running time to reach its payoff. The wilder and woollier second half of Fabric 52 proves Optimo knew what they were doing as always. I don't know how I could have doubted them.