The co-curated Air Texture Compilation series returns with two Brooklyn based selectors.

As the cost of living in Manhattan proper moved artist minded migration patterns further afield, places like East Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Ridgewood became post-cultural centers in a way, with producer after producer gaining international recognition in the last 10+ years. New clubs such as Nowadays, Knockdown Center, and Elsewhere furthered the momentum, anchored by first mover Bossa Nova, and important festivals like Sustain-Release and Dweller came soon after.

Collectively, the stage was set for a beautiful moment in electronic music history, still unfolding, and maybe something that could only happen in the States in a place like Brooklyn.

“Anthony Naples is a Brooklyn based producer, DJ, and co-founder of the record label Incienso. In the early days of his time in the city, he worked at venerated indie label Captured Tracks. He had just started hearing the music that he credits with his early club music education, like Theo Parrish, Actress, and Omar S, down in Florida… “When I found dance music and started to understand the concept about the club, it felt more like you could be more anonymous and not such a front and center sort of presence. That was really attractive to me because I hate being in the spotlight.”

Things shifted quickly once he put out his first record on Justin Carter and Eamon Harkin’s Mister Saturday Night: The lo-fi house cut “Mad Disrespect” blew up, and he started touring immediately. “I always felt insecure about that,” Naples says. “I felt like I didn’t have a lot of roots here.” Naples moved to LA in 2014 and then Berlin a year later.

It wasn’t until he crash landed back in New York at a house on Fairview Ave that he shared with musicians Brian Piñeyro (aka DJ Python), J Albert, and Will DiMaggio that he started to realize how important it was to be a part of the scene on a ground level rather than an export of it. He wanted to be more proactive, to help his peers, to share knowledge. Piñeyro took him under his wing after Naples’ particularly rough go of it in Berlin, and Piñeyro sent him early recordings. Naples felt like it was the right time to do something new. He met Jenny Slattery three weeks later. They started a label, Incienso, and agreed to release a DJ Python LP.” – Vice

“DJ Python is one of the aliases of Brian Piñeyro, also known as DJ Wey. He works with deep reggaeton sounds, merging dembow rhythms with the sound characteristics of deep house. It’s an unmistakable sound that had led Python to release on Dekmantel to glowing reviews.

The sinuous Caribbean pulse of reggaeton and the celestial atmospheres of ambient music might appear to have little in common, but in the hands of Brian Piñeyro these disparate genres sound like a natural combination. From his home in Queens, New York City, DJ Python concocts astral synth pieces, anchored by the “dem bow” rhythm—the beat adopted from Jamaican dancehall by Puerto Rican reggaeton producers and since exported around the Spanish-speaking world by megastars such as Daddy Yankee and Don Omar.

On 2017’s album Dulce Compañia for Anthony Naples’ Incienso label, Piñeyro explored this fusion of tropical rhythmic bustle and off-world electronics to captivating effect, creating an irresistible cloud surfing atmosphere, while drawing on elements of jungle and new age sounds. On album track “q.e.p.d,” he summons shimmering apparitions from his machines, while a moody, deep bassline and a locomotive percussion part provide the rhythm; while on “Todo Era Azul (Versión Afuera),” Piñeyro repurposes a breakbeat and presses it into a reggaeton groove, replete with warm, dubby synth chords.

Born and raised in New York to parents of Ecuadorian and Argentine heritage, Piñeyro moved to Miami while he was still in high school, and the Latin culture of the city, including the beat of reggaeton, made a big impression upon him. As an adult back in NYC, he began to make music seriously, releasing tracks under the pseudonyms DJ Wey, Deejay Xanax, and Luis. As DJ Wey, Piñeyro made “Nosebleed”: an oppressively intense minimal techno piece with zonked out bleeps and evil bass blurts, while as Deejay Xanax, he has created IDM-infused jungle, such as the metallic tasting “DJxana2.” – XLR8R