French producer my.head has never been one to buy into music industry norms or grasp at false hopes of fame and glory, preferring to glide under the radar for the better part of the last half-decade, churning out beatific, genre-spanning tracks on his own and across collaborations with grime entrepreneur Last Japan and Norwegian singer/producer Ida Dillan. With an aesthetic based in hip hop and R&B, my.head also touches on soundtrack music, ambient and IDM, bridging the gap between myriad sounds by tactfully drawing it all into his fuzzy, melancholic universe.

His newest project, the cinematically-focused En Noir, will be released on May 12 via Kastle’s Symbols label, and the effort comes out as his most complete, heart wrenching effort to date. Born out of hardship and a solitary, 18 month recording process, En Noir looks to sci-fi movies, video games and contemporary hip hop and R&B as touchstones, functioning as both a sonic accompaniment for a yet-to-be-realized film and a deeply affecting home listening experience.

And while you might recognize certain pop motifs on tracks like “I Want U” and “Torture” they’ve been abstracted through my.head’s singular outlook, the result being a tape that’s both deeply familiar and vividly alienating at the same time. When En Noir hits a fever pitch of emotion on tape closer “Reversed Wish”, a heart wrenching R&B ballad, drowned under a mile of sludge, it’s clear that the French artist didn’t pull any emotional punches across the EP. It might not be the festival-ready party music of our generation, but my.head has hit a universal nerve with En Noir and the tape will live on well beyond Summer 2015.