Special Request - Soul Music

Label: Houndstooth

Under his own name, Paul Woolford has proven himself a gifted producer working in the techno mould. From 2006’s pitch-black Erotic Discourse to this year’s summer anthem Untitled by way of mutant Psychatron collaboration Stolen, Woolford is responsible for an enviable catalogue of rugged club hits. Yet it was when he first donned his pirate radio-homage moniker Special Request that Woolford’s music really came into a league of its own. Prefiguring the current hardcore revival, the Special Request canon harked back to the raucous 90s UK scene that birthed hardcore and jungle, setting these familiar sounds – ricocheting breakbeats, undulating bass sweeps – into crushed technoid moulds. As much a work of tribute as of innovation, the success of early Special Request tracks (here included in a second bonus disc) was due to Woolford’s eminent ability to channel the period’s reckless abandon, curating a thrilling confluence between past and present sounds which made for some of the last few years’ most essential listening.

Now Woolford introduces his most complete Special Request statement to date in the form of the sublime Soul Music, an album whose title hints at Woolford’s emotional relationship to this music. A dedication to the unsung heroes of pirate radio, this music harks back to a sound which was the foundation of almost all contemporary UK dance, giving birth to the energy, dread, and south London atmospherics that can be heard today in garage, dubstep and grime. Despite its wild pace, Soul Music is evidently a labour of love, as Woolford works within a rough style, referencing illicit radio by arming himself with backspins and MC shoutouts, and even going so far as to sample his own sounds as heard through an FM transmitter. It works brilliantly: a complete statement which at once elegises, lionises, and ultimately reinvigorates the hardcore sound Woolford loves so much.

 

Album Clips

For those looking for the savage hybrids that cemented early Special Request classics such as Lolita (Warehouse Mix) and Mindwash, Soul Music will not disappoint. Soundboy Killer opens with a tongue-in-cheek MC interruption, ‘can you please clear the stage, all you’re doing is jumping the records and we can’t have a good time’, which opens into an explosive hybrid of gender-shifted vocals, gunshots and staggered breakbeat cuts. Throughout, Woolford’s club numbers are bursting with ideas and energy: while Body Armour offers the patient swagger of jackhammer bass hits and cocked pistols, Black Ops seethes over tunnelling filtered synthwork and epileptic break-science.

Yet on one level, we already knew that Woolford could reconfigure these hardcore sounds with the requisite power and grit. As a result some of Soul Music’s most interesting pieces are where he departs from the full-throttle momentum of those earlier releases. Opener Forbidden is a sterling example, as those same breakbeats and growling bass burrow deeper into the mix, adorned by shimmering harp notes and atmosphere to spare. Follow-up Undead is just as intriguing, where it sounds like Untitled’s catchy piano refrain got lost in Special Request’s parallel universe, a treasure whose light filters up from the deep.

While it may have more in common with some of the pacier numbers, third cut Cold Blooded is equally intriguing: like Hessle Audio gone hardcore, its off-kilter beat pattern and insistent melodics make for a powerful trip where Woolford flaunts his sonic inventiveness. This stylistic restlessness is a joy, and evident throughout the album: Capsules filters into existence through deconstruction, as if someone was tuning a radio (achieved with some remarkable panning), while final cut Descent is a curveball of detuned piano notes driven to madness, cannibalised by washes of flickering static.

The album is accompanied by a disc of previous Special Request releases and remixes, and as a result Woolford’s dedication to his hardcore sound palette may fatigue the listener after almost two and a half hours. Yet the quality of these compositions cannot be disputed. It’s a stunningly consistent package, and also a joy to finally get digital versions of the likes of Woolford’s Hackney Parrot VIP or his ace Lana Del Ray remix Ride, among the many gems nestled on the second disc. Soul Music may be composed of songs that aim for the jugular and don’t let go, but the reverence for the source material means that a genuine emotional core glows beneath the brain-frying percussive acrobatics. It’s an astonishing accomplishment, and if this is a window into Woolford’s soul, we might only hope that he continues to bare it well into the future.

9/10
Read this review in context at Inverted Audio

Zomby - With Love

Label: 4AD

While some critics may think that Zomby’s notorious personality is not relevant to a discussion of his music, one might equally argue the opposite. The obnoxious web presence is perhaps not wholly unmerited, masking as it does a producer who is eminently talented. At the same time, the infamous no-shows at headlining spots across his career correlate neatly with an artist who rarely finishes his own tracks, instead releasing albums of beautiful sketches which range from tantalising to frustrating in their brevity. On With Love, his third full length (and second for major indie label 4AD), Zomby’s character is more pertinent than ever; as the album’s first disc could almost be called a summary of the producer’s evolving style over the last half decade.

It’s testament to Zomby’s musicality and his unique voice that he has legions of fans despite the notoriety: the man makes good music. Yet still, With Love is a something of a hard sell. 33 tracks stretched over two discs - parts of the album show Zomby at his best, yet as a whole the LP is somewhat unwieldy. Some may find the abundance gratifying: if you’re going to keep all the songs under four minutes in length, you may as well offer a lot of them. On the other hand, it’s difficult not to feel that trimmed down to the fifteen finest, With Love could be one of the year’s best albums. It will ultimately come down to a question of individual taste, but there is undeniably a lot to love here.

Ascension / Sunshine In November / Overdose / Memories

With Love’s first disc offers a cross-section of Zomby’s musical history, from the ravey breaks of Where Were U In ’92? on Overdose and 777 to the delicate darkness of Dedication recalled on If I Will. Being Zomby, there is of course the obligatory RnB sample, here on Rendezvous, where Brandy's voice is turned distant and anaesthetised. It’s a nocturnal, sometimes unsettling listen, where the mood can stray from urgent to calm within seconds, conjuring an effective dissonance. In what is becoming a trademark, the album deals in myriad references to the UK’s hardcore continuum; here jungle and hardcore rub shoulders with grime and garage, all woven into a sound indisputably Zomby’s own.

The disc hits its stride with Horrid, all tunnelling bass hits and bristling, paranoid synthwork. From here is a run of some of the artist’s best work to date; If I Will’s urgent vocal is set over a field of cheap grime strings and crystalline xylophone-esque melodies, through the low-slung lope and glittering piano of Isis to the dazed breaks of It’s Time. The disc reaches its zenith with Memories, a delicately-crafted duel between soft and hard synthwork, set over a military beat pattern. Yet after this, With Love’s first disc seems to lose its edge. Aside from the mournful darkness of Pray For Me, the same ideas are reworked with less flair, giving the disc’s second half the distinct taint of excess.

Soliloquy

The album’s second disc looks further to Zomby’s future as an artist, but it doesn’t venture that far from his established sound. Here the familiar atmospheres, forged by fragile synthwork painted in bright digital strokes, are supported by skittering 808 percussion, like a tasteful zombification of the current trap trend. These tracks are at their best when Zomby grows introspective, and the run from Reflection In Black Glass to Sunshine In November is where the majority of the disc’s highlights are hidden. These two beautiful beatless sketches are ruthlessly brief, but stunning nonetheless. They also sandwich album highlight Soliloquy, the closest With Love gets to an actual song with a real sense of structure, progression and melodic richness.

The complexity of this late-album highlight illuminates just how impressive Zomby’s work can be when it’s simple: for the album’s best 40-odd minutes he works with just a few sonic layers and practically zero structural progression yet the results are utterly enchanting. Some may justifiably call this album excessive, or denounce the brief tracks as lazy sketches, but since Dedication Zomby’s music has been something that demands to be taken on its own terms. Perhaps the magic of his productions depends on these qualities: if Zomby sat down to write ten 6-minute tracks as a coherent album, would the end result be this good? This reviewer thinks not. With Love is the latest beautiful, messy release from an increasingly singular artist, who deserves to be appreciated because of, rather than despite, his flaws.

7.5/10