Using his golden-era rave-referencing alias Special Request, Paul Woolford has carved out a name for himself in the world of dance music for his upfront and often abrasive sound. Having promised to release four separate albums in 2019: The first one, Vortex, is a full-tilt rave record. Bedroom Tapes is technically the second -- the tracks originated early in his career and reveal that his love of nostalgia is nothing new. The halcyon days of U.K. dance music had more than their fair share of chilled-out numbers, with notable influences derived from Orbital and Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works, and while Woolford remains loyal to that lineage, he also plays to his other great strength: making nostalgic elements feel relevant decades after their inception. Bedroom Tapes traces a line through past influences to the floatier strains of house music heard in the 2010s.
The record begins firmly in '90s nostalgia, with the shambling groove of "Panaflex Sunrise," which recalls the Orb's penchant for arpeggiated melody layered over building string pads. The entire first half acts as a tasting board for irregular rhythms and gauzy synths, only to knock it up a gear by the album's turning point, "Entropy," which brings the bass front and center over layers of intermittent percussive trip-outs. Everything up to this point was succinct, so as not to rely on relatively simple song structures. Woolford loses sight of this on "Xenospin," though, which allows its hypnotic discourse to play out over 12 minutes, causing either a deep stupor or unnecessary tedium. Thankfully, Bedroom Tapes rallies into the non-corporeal, dream-like "Double Rainbow" before landing with the standout moment and album-closer "Phosphorescence." The final track feels like a consolidation, a marriage between nostalgia and modern technology, bringing the emotional heft found in the late-2010s lo-fi house championed by the likes of DJ Seinfeld, Ross from Friends, and Baltra.
Putting out four full-length records in the space of a year has the hidden challenge of differentiating the material from release to release and, thematically at least, Bedroom Tapes does well to separate itself from Vortex. It manages to enrapture thanks to solid layering and intricate patterns -- even if those patterns never really go anywhere -- yet wholly relies on listening to dance music for relaxation. With that requirement fulfilled, Bedroom Tapes shows that Woolford can embrace his softer side with effective results.
© Liam Martin /TiVo