![]() ![]() “Recording with hardware is standard practise for most experienced producers – there is a weight and physicality that can be achieved very quickly” he explains. His special Special Request studio generated “false memories” by almost exclusively utilising vintage hardware, an industrial-strength EQ and, remarkably, an FM transmitter. Woolford ended up creating his own pirate radio set-up, in order to achieve the authentic sounds he craved. You create your own world and it can be as potent as you want it to be.” There is a power psychologically in doing this for any artist because any concerns over perception or intent are out of the question. He continues: “The whole process was liberating in terms of locking myself away and doing something entirely – at the time of recording – unknown to most of my audience. The rest of it is a mixture of experimenting and a handful of definite ideas.” “There are things you can do to keep your state of mind open to accidents that feed into the overall picture, but with Special Request there is a defined shape to the material although it would be difficult for me to actually describe it you. That’s all it comes down to” he responds. How does an artist organise and contextualise such creative, adrenaline-pumped freewheeling? “I just do what I feel at all times. A cut like Broken Dreams, for example, meshes pitbull house rhythms to a series of equally ferocious breaks elsewhere, Woolford regularly works savage yet nostalgic warehouse drumbeats next to atmospheric melodies, deep vocal samples and other experimental sounds. Spanning two-discs (and two digital collections) and absorbing those previous EP forays, it wields an irresistibly raw edge sharpened by memories of classic pirate radio rave and jungle, and then sheathed emphatically with the sensibilities of the contemporary dance floor. Woolford’s debut Special Request album, entitled Soul Music, is quite something. “I played with this over the course of the singles. A refining process followed but that was more to do with the overall approach of the project than its specific beats, basslines and fly samples. ![]() Woolford drafted the initial blueprints for Special Request from a wealth of unreleased tracks. I had the project in mind for some years before the music came, but once I started to make the music it was like a tidal wave.” “It comes from my teenage years listening to pirate stations. “Special Request has always been building to an album” he opens. Momentum is building, much as Woolford himself expected. The latter two have dropped in 2013, Hardcore appearing on Fabric’s ‘artist-led’ splinter label Houndsooth – the same as the new album. Woolford’s debut EP under the moniker, Ride, generated frenzied buzz and inevitably prompted follow-ups Lolita, Hardcore and Vapour/Mindwash. Special Request actually began life last year as both record label and production project. Special Request is yet another exciting shimmy for his CV, Woolford’s long and distinguished career synonymous with thrill and versatility. What better time, then, for Defected’s Ben Lovett to have a chat with the man himself… Plus, he just happens to have made one of the stand-out, feel-good house records of the year. Paul Woolford, a bastion of quality house, techno and electronic music for nearly 20 years now, is about to release a bold and beautiful new album as relatively new alias Special Request. ![]()
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