Paul Woolford presents Bobby Peru - The Truth

 
There’s no denying that Paul Woolford is frequently a fantastic producer. ‘Erotic Discoure’ was inspired and sold 10s of 1000s of copies around the world, he’s turned in some ace remixes for everyone from Urbantorque to Data to Cr2 to Junior Boys’ Own to Dirtybird to Underworldlive, and has released a slew of other great 12”s for 2020Vision.This is his second album for Ralph Lawson’s label, and doesn’t quite live up to the promise.
 
Opener ‘The Truth’ almost hits the mark but narrowly misses – some tasty guitar thrashes, but let down by a tacky bassline. ‘Throb’ follows on and moves in the right direction – gurgling electronics undulating over cool breakbeats and hi-hat patterns that sound full of life and vigour. There’s hints of the old Psychonauts/Wall of Sound vibe on warped and wonky tracks like ‘Scandal’ and the messy, arpeggiated laser-stomp of ‘Anatomy of Desire’, and hints a love of older, early trance music in the heady pads of ‘Emotional Violence’. ‘Aguirre’ shows Woolford at his most skilled; crafting a sublime symphony of mind-caressing, hazy synths and pads over warm sub bass and ticking hi-hats - taking the sound of fluffy electronica a la The Orb and beefing it up heartily. Former single ‘Venom’ deftly mixes relentless, bruising percussion with manic 8-bit synth wizardry and stomping bass, and is a sort of blueprint for the album – all pretty full on, with crashing drums and frenzied electronics that sound like they’re disobeying their masters.
 
Although there’s some fine moments here, the album doesn’t hold together brilliantly as a listenable piece of work. Some let up in the drums would have allowed the more beautiful bits of music he’s created to shine through, and it’s frustrating to hear such material all-too-often overpowered by the fierce percussion. I wouldn’t go back to it, although there’s certainly a fair few tracks here that will find favour with more open-minded DJs.