The other day, I paid a visit to musician/producer Erik Blood's apartment and saw a copy of Lindy West's Shrill on the coffee table. Blood is a longtime West fan and loves Shrill so much that he's planning to take it to the Genius Awards party on September 24, where West is also nominated for an award, to get it autographed.

Blood's own genius animates his lushly expansive yet sensuously intimate new album, Lost in Slow Motion. Its cover looks like an outtake from Alejandro Jodorowsky's surrealist film The Holy Mountain. The figure is masked and behatted, exuding mystery, all of which reflects Blood's love of cinema—in 2010, he scored the Brazilian film Center of Gravity, and he adores American films from the 1970s, ranging from Robert Altman's oeuvre to Star Wars. Blood's partner, artist/animator Joe Garber, gifted him with a Chewbacca ring during their recent Paris vacation. The predilection for costumes onstage has freed Blood to not worry about projecting his own personality. Offstage, he emanates an intense warmth and confidence, with a deep appreciation of sonic and visual details that are at once ethereal and sometimes raunchy (see the cover of his porn-centric album Touch Screens).

While KEXP DJ Alex Ruder ranked Lost in Slow Motion number one on his chart for 2016 so far, the album is not selling enough for Blood to quit his day job at Deluxe Entertainment, where he splices film negatives for TV shows. "The job is very much repetitive motion," Blood says. "My mind is free to do other things while I work." Blood's two biggest upcoming live shows will happen at Bumbershoot and Macefield Music Festival.

Erik Blood will be celebrated at the free Stranger Genius Awards party on September 24 at the Moore Theatre. He's also in the running for $5,000, no strings attached. To see the list of all 15 artists nominated this year, go to thestranger.com/genius2016.