JD Twitch Keith McIvor
Before Optimo started tearing up the rulebook in Glasgow, Keith McIvor had already helped put Edinburgh firmly on the techno map with Pure. Two eras, two landmark clubs, and one DJ who never stopped pushing at the edges of what a dancefloor could handle.
From Pure to Optimo
Keith McIvor didn’t just move with club culture as it changed. Twice, he helped build the kind of night people talked about afterwards because it had shown them something new.
Keith McIvor grew up in Edinburgh and moved to Glasgow for university in the mid-1980s. Before the acid-house explosion had properly redrawn the map, he was already digging into electro and electronic body music — the sort of records that made perfect sense once house and techno started kicking the doors in.
By 1990 he was helping run Pure in Edinburgh. For Scottish ravers, Pure became one of those names that carried weight: a proper techno night bringing serious international artists into a scene that was finding its own confidence fast. The exact point the original Pure run ended depends which record you follow — 1997, 1998 and later final events all appear in retrospective accounts — but the important bit is not in dispute. Pure started in 1990 and became a major part of Scotland’s techno story.
Then came Glasgow. On 30 November 1997, Keith and Jonnie Wilkes — JG Wilkes opened Optimo (Espacio) at the Sub Club. Sunday nights were never quite the same again. Techno could run into electro, post-punk, disco, dub, funk, rock, pop or something properly awkward, and somehow the room stayed with them.
That was the trick with Optimo: it never felt like genre-hopping for the sake of showing off. The records were there because they worked. The pair trusted the crowd, trusted the next tune and trusted that a good dancefloor could be taken somewhere unexpected. The weekly residency lasted until April 2010, but Optimo carried on through touring, parties, mixes and label work long after the Sunday run finished.
Keith also founded Optimo Music, giving the same open-minded approach somewhere to live on record. His remix work stretched from underground electronics to names including Franz Ferdinand, Róisín Murphy, Manic Street Preachers and Florence + the Machine, without ever making him feel tied to one lane.
In 2019 he curated music for Beats, the Scottish film set against the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act era. It suited him perfectly. This was someone who had lived through rave culture from the inside and understood that the records, the rooms and the people were all part of the same story.
In July 2025 Keith announced that he had been diagnosed with an untreatable brain tumour. He died on 19 September 2025 at the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice in Glasgow, aged 57. The tributes came from every corner of club culture, but the clearest measure of what he left behind is still on the dancefloor: Pure, Optimo, and generations of DJs who learned that playing with freedom only works when you really know what you’re doing.
How the story moved
Before the rush
Electro and EBM were already in Keith’s box before acid house and techno blew British club culture wide open.
Pure, Edinburgh
Pure gave Scotland a techno night with real bite and helped make Edinburgh a serious stop on the international circuit.
Optimo (Espacio)
With JG Wilkes at the Sub Club, Sunday nights became a place where almost anything could work — as long as it worked on the floor.
Still moving
Optimo Music, touring, remixing and projects such as Beats kept the same curiosity alive long after the weekly residency ended.
JD Twitch and Optimo
Keith on his own and with longtime Optimo partner JG Wilkes — the faces behind a night that never liked staying in one musical box.
JD Twitch / Keith McIvor DJing.
JD Twitch / Keith McIvor.
JD Twitch / Keith McIvor.
JD Twitch / Keith McIvor.
JD Twitch with JG Wilkes — Optimo.Back to the records
Optimo made its name by refusing to stay inside one box. These surviving mixes let the music do the explaining.
A 75-minute solo mix from 2018: leftfield club music, strange turns and the sort of sequencing that made Twitch such a respected DJ.
An early surviving Optimo recording from the Sub Club years, with Twitch and Wilkes already stretching the idea of what belonged in a club set.
JD Twitch on the decks
The mixes tell one part of the story; the footage shows the control, patience and confidence that made the selections work in a room.
Freedom without losing the room
People often talk about JD Twitch in terms of how wide his record box was, but that only tells half the story. Plenty of DJs can play across genres. Far fewer can do it without emptying the dancefloor or making the night feel like a clever exercise.
Pure and Optimo were different beasts, but the same instinct ran through both: trust the music, trust the crowd and never get too comfortable. Pure helped give Scottish techno a proper home in the early ’90s. Optimo later showed that a great club night did not need to stay in one lane at all.
Keith’s legacy lives in that confidence. DJs still talk about freedom in the booth, but Optimo showed what it looked like when that freedom was backed by taste, nerve and years of listening.
Follow the Scottish thread
Further reading
Keep the room open.
Keith McIvor spent decades showing that a dancefloor could take far more than people gave it credit for — if the person behind the decks had the nerve, the records and the timing to make it work.
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