Since he emerged as one of the standout D.J.s at the London club Plastic People in the late aughts, Sam Shepherd, who makes slow-building, deliberate electronic music as Floating Points, has become known for his precision, his musical knowledge and his modesty. “Elaenia,” his 2015 debut album, took five years to make. He tends not to enjoy his own work.

But the 33-year-old’s new album, “Crush,” out Friday, was jostled from him in five weeks, fueled by his frustration at the state of the world, by “searching for hope and not being rewarded,” he said in a phone interview that started in a taxi from King’s Cross in London and continued in his Shoreditch studio.

Shepherd’s sensitivity to suffering and those who aim to alleviate it — the new track “Sea-Watch” was inspired by Carola Rackete, the German ship captain who was arrested after defying Italy’s attempt to close its borders to the some 40 migrants she had rescued — has long been part of his intellectual exploration. When he moved to London for his doctorate, he studied neuroepigenetics, specifically the role DNA plays in neurons that encode pain.