feels like a regeneration for Benoît Pioulard, the alias of Seattle-based Michigan transplant Thomas Meluch. The album contains elements of his prior work under the name—particularly its general tone of melancholy and disrepair—but he chooses to zone in on the drifty and (mostly) instrumental side of his music for this album. It’s a subtle shift but not an insignificant one—he sounds more confident and in control than on Hymnal, which veered closer to a grab-bag aesthetic. As is often the case when artists reinvent what they’re doing, Meluch had to go backward to move forward, forgoing digital tools to work in an analog environment. The results are more otherworldly, with tiny drones and banks of noise and blocks of tape hiss all coiling around one another, locked tight in an uneasy embrace that only Meluch can connect or disconnect.