- DJ Python revives his most delicate alias for a gorgeous homage to friendship.
- Over the course of two albums and a handful of EPs, Brian Piñeyro has turned DJ Python into a dance floor institution, masterfully smudging the lines between downtempo and reggaeton. But the New York artist actually started out under the name DJ Wey, and he's released records under other names, like DJ Xanax—for breakbeats with anxious synth stabs—and Luis, named for his late grandfather and featuring some of his most introspective work. Piñeyro has only put out one full Luis record before: 2016's Dreamt Takes, a trance-inducing EP inspired by displaced people and the melancholy nature of long-distance companionship. Now he revives the alias with a propulsive but still subdued 12-inch for AD 93, 057 (Schwyn).
Everything about the DJ Python Cinematic Universe is earnest. Piñeyro is goofy and impressively positive, a trait that becomes obvious a few sentences into Max Pearl's 2017 Breaking Through feature here on RA, or listening to his appearance on the trendy podcast How Long Gone. These warm sensibilities kick into hyperdrive on this five-track EP, which is dedicated two of Piñeyro's best friends, Vice executive editor Matthew Schnipper, and the titular Schwyn. An accompanying note reads, "Missen and loven. Schwyn and I go into each other's lives here and there quiet and present. Always missen and loven. To know he is on the Earth is to know that it is beautiful."
057 (Schwyn) is fairly similar to January's stellar DJ Python EP Club Sentimientos Vol. 2. Both are blissed-out and clearly indebted to '90s IDM, so elegant and airy that I'd be tempted to describe them to a more casual dance fan as "spa music." Unlike the project that came before this, the most gripping moments on 057 (Schwyn) bubble up from its taut rhythms.
On "or anyone said it," warm electric pianos and singed synth bleeps peek out from behind a clicky drum machine loop. Piñeyro serves up a swung 2-step groove that sounds like Overmono's "So U Kno" injected with a high dose of melatonin with "we still or nah." This collection is carried by its beats, but it still houses one of the most gentle cuts in Piñeyro's catalog to date: the shimmering ambient synthscape "yoonito." Within the context of a fairly driving record, it presents a respite from the stylings of jungle and dubby techno that tend to dominate the tracklist. Nestling such an inward-looking piece in the middle of 057 (Schwyn) also helps keep it from playing like your average dance EP. As a whole, Piñeyro's latest is palpably human and heartfelt, a sensitive ode to camaraderie.
Tracklist01. timmy chalamet feat. Lis Dalton
02. or anyone said it
03. yoonito
04. we still or nah
05. jack anderson