#Dj kicks special request series#

Woolford had a hand in 11 of the 25 tracks here, but DJ-Kicks never feels overwhelmed with his work it’s a compelling example of the way that talented producers can make captivating DJs.

Previously unreleased Special Request tracks “KissFM NY87 Mastermix” and “Vellichor” help guide the mix from the dreamy, trumpet-led disco of Morgan Geist’s “Lullaby” into AS ONE’s galactic IDM, while new Special Request remixes of “Hayling” and μ-Ziq’s “Twangle Frent” tilt the mood towards the biting nu-jungle of the mix’s closing stretch. Where the requisite jigsaw piece isn’t at hand, Woolford has the production skills to create it. Woolford has the DJ’s gift of taking exactly what he needs from a record, whether that’s 39 seconds of atmospheric noise from “Cluster of Galaxies” or five minutes of song structure from John Morales’ remix of Alicia Myers’ disco anthem “Right Here Right Now” a given song’s individual merits are secondary to the mix’s common good. Some of the transitions are particularly graceful, such as the passage from “R U Hot Enough?” to Speedy J’s 1991 IDM classic “De-Orbit” via Krystal Klear’s 2014 techno tool “Tun Valve,” the four decades between the tracks falling effortlessly off the bone. DJ-Kicks doesn’t so much jump from track to track as ooze ever onwards, the boundaries between songs often impossible to locate. In Virgo’s 1986 house jam “R U Hot Enough?,” this translates into undulating piano chords and ethereal synth strings in the Special Request mix of FC Kahuna’s “Hayling,” it means bleeps, breaks, and satiny vocal and in Tim Reaper’s VIP mix of Special Request’s “Pull Up,” melodics come in the form of a pumped-up and billowing bassline that is vicious in its volume and strangely tender in its melodic caress.Īs a DJ, Woolford favours layering and smooth transitions over flashy tricks. But Woolford has based his song choices around his love for “lush melodics,” a decision that adroitly transcends genre. Songs on this mix date from 1962 (Sun Ra & Solar Arkestra’s “Cluster of Galaxies”) right up to the present day, while the styles glide from proto house to techno and IDM to jungle, passing through ambient, disco, electro, and breakbeat.Įclectic selections can make for bumpy musical rides.

#Dj kicks special request series#

But his entry into the venerable DJ-Kicks series offers him a chance to showcase his turntable chops as he weaves a captivating musical thread across historical and generic boundaries. Stacked with classics both past and future, this Special Request mix sits among the crowning achievements of Woolford’s ongoing legacy.Woolford is better known as a producer than a DJ. Having heightened the mood much in the manner of a classy NYC loft DJ, Woolford adjusts the dimmer with further progressions into hardened rave and jungle, offering up a choice number of exclusives such as his rework of µ-Ziq’s ‘Twangle Frent’ and FC Kahuna’s ‘Hayling’, as well as Tim Reaper’s breakbeat transformation of Special Request’s own tune ‘Pull Up’. He beams trippy mission control atmospherics into John Morales’ resplendent house mix of Alicia Myers’ ‘Right Here Right Now (Hallelujah Anyway)’, as the rolling beat gradually becomes wrapped in the bright trumpet of Morgan Geist’s Kraftwerk-sampling ‘Lullaby’. True to form, the mix is an expertly arranged compendium of Woolford’s nearest and dearest, indulging both heart and feet with bona fide classics and lesser known gems.

A fine balance between precision and emotion permeates Woolford’s output it’s only natural that he would bring those sensibilities to the decks. An admirer of the series since the days of Claude Young, Stacey Pullen and Carl Craig, Paul Woolford aka Special Request presents a wide reaching selection of belters for his own DJ-Kicks mix.