French drone auteur Pascal Savy, now based in London, has crafted a minor masterpiece in Dislocations. Along with a recent release from Matthias Urban, Dislocations marks a return to pressing original music for Ohio-based indie and distributor Experimedia, and it’s a most welcome return. Dislocations is comprised of a series of sublime drones that are surprisingly active given the typically restrained nature of the genre. Dislocations is largely inspired by the writings of Mark Fisher, specifically the notion of “the cancellation of the future” (incidentally the title of the opening track here). There is a sort of fatalism at the core of these evocative drones, starting off unassumingly but then building into a handsome, dramatic slab of atmosphere. The cynicism and doubt that characterize that first track shift shapes across Dislocations, harnessing that nervous energy and channeling it into contrasting forms. “Shadows Out of Time,” for example, feels quite at odds with the more cinematic unfurling of the opener. Instead its restraint lends it a tautness that never unwinds, even as its drones come and go.

Elsewhere, Savy tips the balance toward hushed noise; “Night More Viscous Than the Dawn” is predictably dense but has the constantly looming threat of a full-on blast of noise. It never truly delivers on that, instead just releasing the pressure through slow swells of sound, a strategy that proves effective in its quiet drama. But the most elaborate and longest one of them, “Allow the Light,” feels like an appropriate bookend to the opener. It shares its more musical qualities, with string-ish drones lending an emotive immediacy as it grows in scale. Its in those ways that Dislocations reminds me of the big, patient slabs of drones that Savy’s American contemporary Rafael Anton Irisarri has pushed on recent releases, characterized both by timbre and slow-moving dynamics but also with a moody edge that can sometimes be missing from more inert drone recordings. Highly recommended listening.

Buy it: Bandcamp | Experimedia