In terms of the musical climate, there was definitely a point where it was clear that people would be more open to more drastic sounds – although this was more in the background. The immediate pleasure was immense and I felt more inspired and invigorated than I had been for some years. Right at this point I decided to change agents, leave the management company that represented me, get rid of any PR assistance and focus solely on this project. There came a point where I felt ready to dive back into it all again following a period of almost estrangement from my immediate surroundings in terms of the industry. Both the energy and the contrasts of hardcore/jungle are things that I’ve always felt were vital to dance music in their permutations. The whole project had been distilling for years before I recorded anything. Is there something about this moment in electronic music that made such an effort seem necessary or fruitful beyond just your personal drive? It was more important to me than “will anyone else get it?” – I didn’t really give a fuck about anyone else. I think most artists have a gut feeling for how something will be reacted to – much of the impact is down to presentation, timing and so on, but with this project I really didn’t care for any of that. The nature of hardcore music and the fact that it was not in vogue at the time just egged me on even more – but not only that, the absolute conviction and faith in it was something I had not quite felt before. To a certain degree I had known this and done it – but Special Request felt like a door had opened. I realised this had been staring me in the face for years and that the most important thing was to focus on exactly what I wanted to do – all the time. What kinds of inspirations or non-musical thoughts did you find yourself unlocking, specifically? Or was it just a general creative reinvigoration? Special Request is intentionally more introverted than the buoyant “Untitled”: Woolford has said that the project was borne out of “sheer self-indulgence.” In a series of emails with RBMA, Woolford discussed the seismic musical revelations of his youth and their manifestations in the Special Request project. The Leeds native had plenty of prior success, whether in 2005 with “ Erotic Discourse” as Bobby Peru or this summer’s “ Untitled,” an inescapable piano-house anthem originally released on Hotflush. Special Request began as a reaction to Woolford’s frustration with the more professionalized aspects of his career alongside a desire for reinvigoration. It’s pastiche, homage, and essential contemporary expression all in one. His debut album on Houndstooth, Soul Music, succeeds in educating without feeling like a lecture. Yet even as a critical narrative asserts jungle’s general re-emergence, Special Request stands out. Woolford’s alias takes inspiration from the golden age of UK jungle, but came to prominence in a year when such references were particularly popular, whether it was Four Tet name-checking pirate radio in Beautiful Rewind or selectors like Ben UFO playing dedicated jungle sets at fabric. Special Request’s music is at once dated and familiar, succeeding both as a form of preservation and modern reinvention. Electronic music is engaged in a constant tug-of-war between nostalgia and futurism, and Paul Woolford’s Special Request project exemplifies the convergence of those two ideals.
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