- Thought DJ Python couldn't make something prettier than Mas Amable? Think again.
- Brian Piñeyro's music has always felt personal and specific, yet it carries a universal appeal. His idiosyncratic blend of reggaeton, ambient music and techno has found an audience far beyond the usual reach of dance music, and with Mas Amable—RA's favorite LP of 2020—he created a bona fide classic that already feels like one of the most important electronic records of the past ten years. So, then, the tough question—how to follow it up? Piñeryo does it in a typically cheeky and low-key way, with a "sequel" to a record that never existed. It's a humble but exceedingly lovely three-track EP that contains what might be the best track of entire career.
Let's talk about the flipside first. "TMMD (IMMD)" feels like vintage Python, with a spring in its step carefully tempered by plangent pads and a disembodied vocal sample that feels like it floated into the wrong room by accident. The rhythm is addictive, a drum track that would be catchy even on its own. On the other hand, "Club Sentimiental Vol. Three" is almost all melody, with decaying synths that melt like Dalí's clocks on top of a barely-there rhythm. Calling back to his first album, it splits the difference between reggaeton and trip-hop.
There's more than a little early Autechre to "Club Sentimiental Vol. Three" and its reverb-drenched percussion, which reminds me of Piñeyro's 2019 EP for Dekmantel, where the latent IDM influence of his work surfaced loud and clear. That's all I can hear on the stunning, nearly-11 minute "Angel," which takes Piñeyro's sounds to almost dizzying heights of beauty. Considering the strength of his catalogue, it's like that one really good picture you take of the clouds from the airplane window—you've seen it before, sure, but this time it's really hitting.
What makes "Angel" so good? It's a mixture of the buttery rhythm and prodding basslines, completed by some well placed tablas (more early '90s vibes) and a stuttering mallet figure that doubles and triples up in all the right places. Just when you think Piñeyro has settled on a groove, he'll introduce a skipping snare or make that mallet motif go haywire, the kind of thing engineered to send shivers down your spine. "Angel" is a mesmerizing 11 minutes, and you get the feeling that Piñeyro got as lost it making it as you do listening to it.
Tracklist01. Angel
02. TMMD (IMMMD)
03. Club Sentimiental Vol Three