“Escape” by Irezumi

I’ve been following Irezumi’s music ever since his sophomore album, 2016’s excellent Thirty. Put simply, the Parisian composer and producer excels at crafting dark ambient music that handily eschews the usual tropes and clichés.

While many artists in the genre seem OK with repeating the same old sounds heard on Cold Meat Industry albums from the mid-to-late ’90s, Irezumi crafts emotionally rich and deeply personal soundscapes. Case in point: His latest album, titled Downfall, explores “the urge to disappear far from the social veneer” and “the feeling of never belonging.”

Downfall is by turns ominous, reflective, and tentative on tracks like “Altered,” “Asleep,” and “Hesitation,” capturing what Irezumi describes as “the fractures of a mind in crisis.” But the album also contains moments that can only be described as majestic, such as its centerpiece, “Escape.”

Opening with Mount Shrine-style atmospherics, the slow-burning song evokes the soundtracks of Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson and Jóhann Jóhannsson as it builds atop gentle swells that grow more intense and pronounced with each passing second, evincing a sense of triumph — however momentary — over mental crisis and personal trauma.

Downfall is now available via Brique Rouge.