Split

Leading dons of hybrid dembow club music, Nick León & DJ Python cap a mad couple of years with four metallic, reticulated electro-ton zingers on the latter’s Worldwide Unlimited label. Chasing up León’s summer rave anthem ‘Xstasis’ and production on Rosalía’s ‘Motomami’, and Python’s winding annum including ‘Club Sentimientos Vol. 2’ plus a Sangre Nueva followup with Florentino & Kelman Duran; the pair build on months of residency + hanging at club Suero in Miami with four mercurial fusions finessed with sick, divergent production palettes and techniques. Bridging their known styles into something altogether new, the ‘Split’ EP gives up two solo shots by both artists. Nick León cooks up the spiny ace ‘Nerves’ with its hackled metallic melody set to martial dembow swag and grimiest bass grind, whilst his ‘Love Potion’ pushes the tempo to near percolated broken beats zones, and opens out the vibe with breezy chords and fluid texturing. On the other hand, Python whisks jaunty reggaeton trills and aerosolised electronics in ‘I’m Tired’, and slants off into psychedelic-impressionist abstraction on ‘uwu’ with its un-stitched tresillo patterns and groggy pads coloured well out-of-the-lines.