- Paul Woolford started Special Request as a way to channel his childhood love affair with pirate radio. Over time, the layers of nostalgia have fused with something more modern and stylish. That much was clear when I saw Woolford DJ as Special Request at this year's Bass Coast festival, where he threw down bass-heavy music of all stripes, venturing outside the hardcore and jungle domain of the earliest Special Request records. His latest album, Belief System—a 24-track, nearly two hour-long epic—follows an exhilarating mix CD for Fabriclive, which also showcased a wide range of styles.
The album's opening half dazzles. The array of sounds—electro ("Adel Crag Microdot"), broken beat ("Scrambled In LS1"), hardcore ("Brainstorm")—feels distinctively 2017 even as it looks backwards. A large part of Belief System's appeal comes from Woolford's ultra-polished production. The LP's sterling synth work, carefully EQd drums and perfect mixdowns might give an amateur producer cause to quit in frustration.
Woolford knows how to make certain sounds stand out. He can turn rude basslines into a science, as on the soulful "Make It Real," where the second drop has a remarkably heavy bassline. Other highlights include "Replicant (Nexus 7 VIP)," a futuristic IDM take on jungle, and the soulful 2-step of "Change." The way the beat changes from the tougher garage of "Sanctuary" into the softer skip of "Change" is a moment to behold. It's a particularly fine example of the LP's careful sequencing, which makes the tracks—which often have no gaps between them, or begin with a spinback—hit that much harder.
Belief System falters when Woolford changes tack to explore ambient music. Inspired by his recent sound design work for film, these tracks are suitably cinematic, but more Hans Zimmer than Vangelis. The heavy strokes, hammy strings and big textures feel contrived in this context. It's an easy misstep to forgive considering Belief System contains many of Woolford's best dance tracks yet. But it also seems like a wasted opportunity, especially since the ambient tracks are bundled together in the album's second half, an odd decision for an LP that otherwise feels carefully put together. It's like two albums in one—faced with the choice of listening to one or the other, it's easy to guess what most people would settle for.
What sinks Woolford's ambient tracks is the absence of what makes Special Request music special: a bold and youthful energy, which Woolford has managed to carry with him into his 40s. Even if Special Request isn't as explicitly nostalgic as it used to be, Belief System has the endless exuberance of a young person getting into music for the first time. The album's split personality is a shame, because the first half has some of the best music of Woolford's career. But even if it isn't brilliant all the way through, Belief System is still an achievement. 12 of its tracks are as electrifying and giddy as you'll hear all year.
Tracklist01. Chrysalis
02. Adel Crag Microdot
03. Catacombs
04. Tiresias
05. Sanctuary
06. Change
70. Curtain Twitcher
08. Scrambled In LS1
09. Make It Real
10. Brainstorm
11. Leviathan
12. Replicant (Nexus 7 VIP)
13. Cheyne Stoking
14. Light In The Darkest Hour
15. Carex Vesicaria
16. Advent
17. Witness
18. Transmission
19. Reckoning
20. Qoriqzona
21. Five Lane Ends
22. Ouroboros
23. In Loving Memory