Daphni: Butterfly

"In Dan Snaith's Daphni project, taste typically outpaces narrative. Off-kilter loops do most of the talking; a track can be "about" nothing more than what it does to a room. This is music Snaith makes primarily to play in his DJ sets, with " slower, weirder" cuts reserved for the right club. That approach came to a peak on his last full-length, . Each song was an eclectic singularity: precise, glassy, poignant, and cool as hell."

"On Butterfly, Snaith's fifth album under the moniker, the Daphni project is still chiefly identified with his proclivities behind the decks. But Butterfly, unlike Cherry, promises technicolor dancefloor certainty, the kind of clean, stadium-ready churn that's become the default for contemporary DJs who sell the underground as a feeling. Where he might've previously snuck in weirder cuts like "Cloudy" or "Ye Ye" for discerning clubgoers, here he trades in his cool chip for mainstream appeal."

"The problem with Butterfly isn't that it's functional. It's that its function feels pre-determined: The record moves like a sales pitch for what a Daphni album can cover in 2026, an immaculate presentation and walk-through of dance-music convention, rather than an unfolding journey where the destination remains unknown even to its creator. Butterfly is Daphni's attempt at serving overground house with an edgier toolkit: sub-heavy four-on-the-floor with flickers of acid, dub, and jazz."

Daphni's music often privileges taste and immediate club effect over linear narrative, using off-kilter loops and DJ-centric design. Cherry exemplified eclectic singularities and unexpected shifts that balanced mood and floor energy. Butterfly shifts toward technicolor, stadium-ready house, emphasizing polished, conventional dancefloor mechanics and mainstream appeal. The record functions like a showcase of contemporary DJ conventions rather than an exploratory journey, prioritizing pre-determined hooks and commercial clarity. Production choices lean on sub-heavy four-on-the-floor with acid, dub, and jazz inflections, while individual tracks sometimes introduce ideas only to loop and return to familiar, immediately consumable motifs.

Read at Pitchfork