Listen to the world premiere of Special Request’s ‘Belief System’ through Crack Magazine and Bleep on Facebook Live

We’re excited to be continuing .AV – a collaboration with Bleep where new albums are premiered in full across the world through Facebook Live.

Tomorrow (10 October) at 9PM BST, we’ll be broadcasting the first play of Special Request’s Belief System – a brand new album which drops on Friday (13 October) via Fabric’s Houndstooth label. The stream will be accompanied by a bespoke visual loop created by designer and 3D motion graphics artist Brendan Bennett.

Paul Woolford returns to Houndstooth under the Special Request alias on this epic, 23-track exploration of doctrine and order. While rooted in the murky UK underground blueprints that the Special Request project started out in, Belief System builds into a different kind of organism – with rich atmospherics and glacial ambient textures contributing to a broader sonic tapestry.

The album has been recorded over the last three years with source material from Woolford’s archives being excavated, dusted off and put to use. The cinematic soundtrack-style work of the record’s latter half owes a lot to field recordings and sound design which Woolford’s been exploring more and more. One track even includes the sound of an iceberg cracking.

The depth of the technique and richness of resources which have been poured into this record is evident – elevating the signature Special Request sound into something altogether more ambitious and extraordinary.

The monolithic themes of the record were used by visual artist Brendan Bennett when he approached the task of producing the visuals. Speaking to us via email, Bennett elaborated on the process. “We approached the visuals as an expansion of Rodin’s Gates of Hell [the sculpture which adorns the cover art for Belief System]. The aim was to build an atmospheric world that was just as haunting and hellish as the sculpture. We used shifting light and contorted figures throughout to create the heightened atmosphere that matches the feeling and pace of the tracks.”

Experience the audiovisual premiere of Special Request’s Belief System in the player below.

Pre-order the album via Bleep here.