Never one to do things in the most normal manner, Paul Woolford says that he’s made the four (!) Special Request LPs set to drop in the coming months while he was dossing around in his pants. The claim is easier to believe when you hear Vortex, the first of the quartet to emerge on Houndstooth.

This album is definitely the work of someone who had a lot of fun when making it. Indeed, Woolford signposts the joy he took from crafting VORTEX before you even get around to the music - day-glo black metal artwork and track titles like ‘A Gargantuan Melting Face Floating Effortlessly Through The Stratosphere’ set the tone nicely.

When you get to the music you’ll find that this album is a twisted mix of electro, breakbeat, hardcore and devil-may-care electronics. As is customary with the Special Request project we see Woolford dragging 20th Century rave sounds into the present day and bending them to his will. Cuts like ‘Ardkore Dolphin’ and ‘Vortex 150’ come across like old jungle tracks which have been left on spin-cycle for days, their broken beats and squelching basslines now all jumbled up.

It’s worth noting that VORTEX is an LP that gets quicker as it goes on. While ‘SP4NN3R3D’ and ‘Memory Lake’ start us off at acid/electro tempo, by the end of the record we find Woolford having a go at something close to gabber - or at least the sort of warped hard-tech that has been coming out on Bjarki’s bbbbbb imprint these past few years. The ever-increasing BPM’s only add to the feeling of an artist going about their business with delirious glee.

Special Request’s VORTEX is one hell of a good time.