OPTIMO’S Jonnie Wilkes is often unfairly thought of as someone who hates doing interviews. But although JD Twitch tends to take on the bulk of Optimo-related promo duties, Wilkes is actually one of the most obliging interviewees around, as long as you keep things accurate. “A simple enough name like Naum Gabo is even misspelled in reviews and press articles, and on record sleeves,” he tells me, talking about he and Glasgow producer/studio engineer James Savage’s long-running collaboration project, the subject of this chat. “For some reason people find it difficult to copy two simple four-letter words. But that’s just the way it goes. I suppose we should be grateful for any attention we get at all,” he laughs.

The Belfast-born artist, DJ and producer is of course happy to talk with this upstanding publication, and with a new two-track Naum Gabo 12-inch just out on Glasgow’s Rubadub Records, now was as good a time as any to do so. In release terms, Naum Gabo dates back to 2003/4, when the duo (initially known just as Naum) contributed tracks to three of Kompakt’s legendary Speicher series of split 12-inches.

“In 2001 I went to meet James at the studio he ran on Jamaica Street,” Wilkes says of the origins of the project. “I went there to try to make sense in the mix of some tracks I’d been working on at home, and we bonded over John Carpenter, Krautrock records and Austrian disco rock. I remember we were also both sympathetic to the notion that perhaps the TR-909 was by this time well-trodden ground, and that it wasn’t necessary to actually own one – or any other by-now fetishised pieces of manly “kit” – to make dance music.

“James made a somewhat inadvertent move to electronic music production,” he goes on. “His background was as a session keyboard player and touring musician. I know he was engineering music of all sorts prior to that, from the American Christian country scene to Swedish pop/dance anthems. I knew of him through the local scene here in Glasgow before I knew him personally, because of his reputation for pushing production techniques and constantly exploring ‘new ways’. Whilst I’ve toured pretty much non-stop for years with JD Twitch as Optimo, James is based here, lecturing in sound production, and mastering vinyl out of our studio (Hottrax Glasgow) for a plethora of labels worldwide, including Optimo Music and Optimo Trax.”

The chunky, spiralling, mid-paced workouts the pair came up with for those early-00s Speicher records contributed much to what was undoubtedly a golden era for Speicher series. They also set certain sonic precedents for the project that have largely endured through a dozen-odd releases since. Not that Wilkes has much interest in ascribing any constants to the pair’s sound. “We make it and let it go,” he says. “Then onto the next thing. We’re not concerned in the slightest with making ourselves known through a sound – essentially we’re both shy individuals and hiding between the lines suits us fine. Our tracks are just ideas that we are trying to get across, and each requires something new and each naturally varies accordingly. ‘Let’s put this next to that, even if it is difficult and uncomfortable,’ – we are okay with that.

“If people feel there is something consistent in the sound then so be it but it’s not something we know about or have ever been concerned about. At the risk of sounding self-absorbed, we are moody people and we change all the time. Music isn’t everything – we live around real things, big problems sometimes and they dictate things a lot. It’s an adventure making the music and we are only responsible for making it known. It’s our inners going outer and sometimes it’s dark, other times it’s not. It’s impossible to discuss it in any other way.” The most concrete thing Wilkes will say about Naum Gabo’s music actually comes when I ask him about the project’s name, which they share with the late, much-feted Russian Constructivist sculptor. “The music we were coming up with was kinetic, spiralling wildly, so we took his name because we felt those were qualities it shared with the work of the real Naum Gabo.”

“Kinetic” and “spiralling wildly” would be apt descriptions of tracks from every era of Naum Gabo, from the early Speicher tracks to turn-of-the-decade outings for the likes of World Unknown, Optimo Music (for whom they riotously covered Simple Minds’ Theme For Great Cities in 2011) and Let’s Play House, right up to Val’s Hair, the B-side on their new Sleep C’Mon 12-inch for Rubadub. “Apparently Val’s Hair is a more ravey affair,” he laughs. “I even saw it referred to in reviews as a ‘banger’. I know the sound we’ve used that would make you say that but it wasn’t what we were thinking at the time, as far as I remember.

“It’s nice how the record with Rubadub came about,” he continues. “I’d let Richard (Chater) hear some tracks which he must have taken to work with him at the RAD distribution warehouse. As far as I know he was playing the Sleep C’Mon track over the speakers there when Martin (McKay, Rubadub’s co-owner) piped up and asked what the track was, saying he was digging it. Knowing Martin’s taste a little and thinking about all the records he alerted me to and sold me during his time behind the counter at Rubadub’s shop, I can see that the mid-tempo wonkiness, the fits and starts might appeal to him. I’m really happy they did, and it means a lot to us that he was into the track enough to give it a release.”


Naum Gabo’s Sleep C’Mon is out now on Rubadub Records. Snippets of the tracks can be heard here.