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The Duke Dumont

Born the son of a record dealer and raised in north-west London where pirate radio ruled the airwaves during the late 90s, it was near-inevitable that a teenage Adam Dyment would eventually find himself in front of a pair of Technics 1210s. This was a time of swapping vinyl and mixtapes - a time bridge, really - before broadband internet and mass illegal downloads, but during the early stages of computer software becoming an option for beat making. And this was the era of Adam's grounding in music; DJing was the in-thing, and was simultaneously the genesis for accessible music production software.

Music production became an all-consuming passion and, after winning the Diesel U Music award for the country's best unsigned producer, he was afforded two huge opportunities: being signed to a DJ agency (a move that allowed him to quit his day job and focus full-time on music), and being given the opportunity to remix a track by Mekon featuring Roxanne Shante. His stock has been rapidly rising ever since; for the next few years, his ability to transform indie tracks into his own, made him the go-to remixer for the likes of Mystery Jets, Late of the Pier and Bat For Lashes. However, his production has broadened in scope with remarkable force, and with his debut artist album in the works this year, he is determined not to be held ransom by musical-cliques.

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Optimo (Espacio)

Raised in towns of disparate temperament, though both relatively austere, the Optimo duo grew up living parallel lives, making similar discoveries (punk attitudes, against-the-grain musical tastes, rave culture) around the same time. The two even made the move to Glasgow, the city in which they're revered as local heroes these days, coincidentally around the same age, for coinciding reasons. JD Twitch grew up amongst the quiet landscapes of Edinburgh, the person amongst his crowd "with the most records," so a DJing career came about inevitably and organically. After making the move to Glasgow for music at the age of 18, 4 years later he found himself going back and forth between Glasgow and his hometown when he started an Edinburgh-based club night with a few friends, Pure. Now regarded as a seminal chapter in the history of UK electronic music, Pure was one of the first clubs in the UK (if not Europe) to book overseas royalty such as Richie Hawtin, Derrick May, Green Velvet and Jeff Mills. Over the course of its 10 year run, Pure also expanded to London, Dublin, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee, among other tours around Europe.

As a young teenager in Belfast, meanwhile, Jonnie Wilkes "got interested in punk music, and started to dress a bit differently from other kids...I got into music and sub culture rather than sectarianism and fighting." After discovering clubs like The Delta and The Plaza in Belfast in the mid-80s (where, amongst others, David Holmes would often play), he soon set his sights on the musical open-mindedness of Glasgow, and began attending Glasgow School of Art as a fine art student. One night, Jonnie went to fill in for a friend's set at a reggae club in the city centre, and his DJ career, likewise, developed inevitably and organically from there. In-between studies and exhibitions, DJing took the lead.

It was on a bus from Glasgow to Edinburgh one fated Friday night, with the end destination being Pure of course, that Jonnie Wilkes and JD Twitch fortuitously met. The connection was immediate and unquestionable. So it came as no surprise that, when approached by a venue to put together a Sunday club night a few years later ("They were happy for me to do whatever I wanted - literally delve into my record collection and play all the music I'd never really played in a DJ set"), Twitch turned to Wilkes for a partnership. Optimo was born on a humble Sunday evening at the Sub Club on Jamaican Street, with no set plans and only a strong no-rules ethic as a guide. Originally started as the antithesis to regimented 4/4 sets, the night has since become a cult-followed mecca for music lovers worldwide - Optimo has proved itself an exciting breeding ground for new sounds, featuring every musical rebel across the board, from Liquid Liquid to Shackleton to Grace Jones to Richie Hawtin to TV On The Radio to LCD Soundsystem to Isolee. And the infamous Optimo DJ sets, which sandwich the featured guest (both before and after), are a riotous playground of rockabilly, electro, swing, reggae, punk, techno and house, and the most unexpected gems imaginable, but always aimed squarely at making people dance.

And after 12 years of a blissfully inspiring run of weekly events, Twitch and Wilkes have decided to pull the plug on their worshipped and rather legendary Sunday affairs. The last ever Optimo will be on Sunday, 25 April at the Sub Club in Glasgow.

I Beat My Robot / Marmite (Original Sin Remix)

Caspa

What a 12-months its been for Caspa. It was almost a year to the day when we first announced his debut album through fabric, the LP that took him from the underground hero he was to the household name he is today. Although we say that, but Caspa never left the underground, in fact he's managed to successfully stay true to his original fanbase by never changing his approach, style or sound, it's just everyone else in the world is a lot more interested than they used to be.

In the UK in 2010, you can safely say that anyone with an interest in popular music between the ages of 16-25 will know what dubstep is - it's everywhere. Sometimes things just fall into place and for Caspa, what started out as him going to UK Garage and Drum'n'Bass nights, dancing to new sounds and being inspired by the DJs has now evolved into him travelling the World as a global star.