“And now silence,” wrote DJ/producer Rory Phillips late Sunday night. “R.I.P. Optimo (Espacio). The last of the U.K.’s great weekly parties.”

Phillips should know. As one of the residents of London’s long-running (and dearly-missed) Trash night alongside Erol Alkan, Phillips spent nearly a decade being the British answer to JG Wilkes and JD Twitch. That’d be two of self-titled‘s favorite DJs of all time, the guys who opened our ears to Arthur Russell, Sun City Girls, Carl Craig, Lee Hazelwood, the Langley School Music Project, Black Devil Disco Club, Ricardo Villalobos, the Bush Tetras, Basic Channel, Os Mutantes, etc. etc. And that was just one double-disc mix: 2004′s How to Kill the DJ [Part Two], one of the few CDs we absolutely refuse to remove from our collection. Why? Because it’s a crash course on every (sub)genre known to man, mixed impeccably and without a trace of snobbery.

That’s the thing about Optimo—despite their ridiculous record collections, they’ve never looked down at us. They’ve remained educators through and through, from such equally essential mixes as Walkabout, Psyche Out and Sleepwalk to side projects like Wilkes’ Naum Gabo duo and Twitch’s Betty Botox alias. Not to mention the following five Podcasts, which we’ve uploaded along with and some of our favorite flyers from Optimo’s 13-year run. For the full story behind Optimo, be sure to check out this excellent Resident Advisor feature.