Special Request

Paul Woolford maintains an array of performing identities, among them Bobby Peru, Hip Therapist, Wooly, and Skip Donahue. Under the Special Request banner he channeled the breakbeat techno, drum'n'bass, and further subterranean club styles he first absorbed from pirate radio broadcasts across his native U.K. Several white-label 12" singles preceded the project’s widely praised debut album, Soul Music, which appeared on Houndstooth in 2013. Although most of his output remained geared toward dance floors, Special Request periodically ventured elsewhere, issuing the cinematic, experimental Belief System in 2017 while concentrating on tear-out hardcore with Vortex two years later. Woolford also displayed his breadth behind the decks on the 2021 installment of the DJ-Kicks series.

He inaugurated Special Request in 2012 on a self-titled imprint, issuing a trio of 12"s, one featuring a Kassem Mosse and Mix Mup remix. Certain cuts stayed within straightforward techno, yet others incorporated choppy jungle breaks and rave synths that gave the material a distinctly harder edge. After another single on the same label and the Hardcore EP on Fabric’s Houndstooth division, Woolford delivered the full-length Soul Music in October 2013; its CD and digital versions incorporated leftover single material plus his Special Request reworkings of tracks by Tessela and Lana Del Rey.

Houndstooth followed in 2014 with the split 12" HTH vs HTH, pairing Special Request and Akkord as they reworked each other’s material. Signing to XL—the very imprint behind many of the classic breakbeat techno records that had shaped Woolford’s tastes—the artist issued three Modern Warfare EPs in 2015. A remix EP surfaced the next year, containing two versions by Shed’s Head High alias. Returning to Houndstooth, Special Request offered the speed-garage-flavored single “Transmission” later in 2016. In 2017 he compiled the 91st edition of the Fabriclive series; alongside a broad selection of electro, techno, and jungle selections, the mix introduced several new Special Request productions that later appeared unmixed on the Stairfoot Lane Bunker EP. Months afterward he previewed his second album with the track “Adel Crag Microdot.” Issued once more on Houndstooth, Belief System contained twenty-three pieces assembled over three years and expanded Woolford’s palette by merging soundtrack atmospherics and field recordings with his signature heavy breaks. An accompanying EP, Curtain Twitcher, centered on one album cut and included a Peder Mannerfelt remix.

Woolford declared plans in 2019 to release four albums across the calendar year. Vortex arrived first, in May, delivering an uncompromising club record built entirely from “bowel-evacuating bangers” that pushed his customary breakbeat hardcore into harsher, more abrasive territory. Bedroom Tapes followed in June, surfacing early cassette recordings he rediscovered while relocating and offering a gentler counterpart that connected 1990s left-field sensibilities with understated late-2010s house textures. Offworld, out in October, was summarized by the question “What if Jam & Lewis signed to Metroplex?” At year’s end he self-released the most extreme of the quartet, Zero Fucks. R&S issued the Spectral Frequency EP in 2020, spotlighting the album’s most widely embraced cut. The following year Woolford collaborated with Tim Reaper on the joint release Hooversound Presents: Special Request and Tim Reaper; two tracks from that EP appeared on his DJ-Kicks mix, which itself was prefaced by the original-material EP Compassion.