One of several aliases used by
Paul Woolford (aka Bobby Peru, Hip Therapist, Wooly, and Skip Donahue),
Special Request was inspired by the breakbeat techno, drum'n'bass, and other underground dance music forms the DJ and producer encountered on pirate radio stations in his native U.K. The project followed several white label 12" singles with an acclaimed full-length debut, 2013's
Soul Music, released by Houndstooth. While generally continuing to produce club-based material, the project has occasionally branched out on releases like 2017's cinematic, experimental
Belief System, but others like 2019's Vortex focus on tear-out hardcore. He's also demonstrated his range as a DJ with mix sessions like 2021's DJ-Kicks.
In 2012,
Woolford initiated the
Special Request project on a label of the same name with a trio of 12" releases, one of which featured a remix from
Kassem Mosse and
Mix Mup. While some of the tracks were more straightforward techno, others included choppy jungle breaks and rave synths, and were much harder-edged. After another single on
Special Request and the
Hardcore EP on Fabric's Houndstooth division,
Woolford released the
Soul Music album in October 2013. The CD and digital editions added material from the singles, as well as
Woolford's
Special Request remixes for
Tessela and
Lana Del Rey.
In 2014, Houndstooth released HTH vs HTH, a split 12" that featured
Special Request and
Akkord remixing each other's tracks. In 2015,
Special Request signed to XL (a label responsible for releasing many of the classic breakbeat techno tracks that
Woolford took inspiration from) and released a series of three Modern Warfare EPs. A remix EP (including two takes by Shed's similarly styled Head High alias) followed in 2016. Back on Houndstooth,
Special Request's speed garage-inspired single "Transmission" was released later in the year. In 2017, he mixed the 91st volume of the Fabriclive series. In addition to a wide variety of electro, techno, and jungle tracks, the mix included several new
Special Request productions, some of which were released (in unmixed form) on
Woolford's
Stairfoot Lane Bunker EP. A few months later,
Woolford dropped the first track, "Adel Crag Microdot," from his second
Special Request full-length album,
Belief System. Released once again through Houndstooth, the album featured no less than 23 tracks that had been recorded over a three-year period.
Belief System also saw
Woolford stretching his musical footprint by combining soundtrack-inspired atmospherics and field recordings with his now-trademark heavyweight breaks. An EP titled
Curtain Twitcher, built around one of the album's tracks and including a
Peder Mannerfelt remix, appeared around the same time.
In 2019
Woolford announced that he had planned to release four albums throughout the course of the year; the first was Vortex, released in May. The hard and heavy club record, consisting entirely of "bowel-evacuating bangers," twisted his typical breakbeat hardcore sounds into some of the harshest, most amusical forms possible. The second was
Bedroom Tapes, a collection of early tracks that he rediscovered on cassette during a move but didn't release until June 2019. The album featured a taste of
Woolford's softer side, tracing a line through the left-field vibes of the '90s to some of the floaty, understated strains of late-2010s house. Offworld (October) was simply described by the question "What if
Jam & Lewis signed to Metroplex?" Finally, at the end of the year, he self-released the hardest of them all, Zero Fucks. In 2020, R&S issued Spectral Frequency, an EP centered around the album's most well-received track. He teamed up with Tim Reaper the following year for the joint EP Hooversound Presents: Special Request and Tim Reaper. Two tracks from the EP were featured on
Woolford's installment of !K7's DJ-Kicks series, which was preceded by an EP of original tracks from the mix, Compassion. ~ Andy Kellman & Paul Simpson