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Reviews 396: Radx

I have written about X.Y.R. somewhat extensively here on The Sun Lounge, and in reading those posts, it is clear that I really admire the music of Vladimir Karpov. X.Y.R.’s transportive amalgams of psychedelic ambient, ritualistic kosmische, and fantasy fourth world create a sort of sonic safe harbor for me…a place of spiritual serenity and mysterious magic that I can return to again and again whenever I need a place for balance, calm, or imaginative introspection. So given that the first half of 2025 was a relatively quiet period for the artist, I was immensely excited to learn Karpov released a new album on 12th Isle during the latter part of the year, where he worked in a somewhat rare collaboration with Vlad Dobrovolski under the name Radx.

Karpov's creative companion here—Vlad Dobrovolski—is himself a longtime explorer of experimental ambience, out-there sound collage, avant jazz, exotic world music, and modern new age, who has been involved in a wide range of solo and cooperative works…things like his multi-part Natursymphony series, his improvisational quartet Kurvenschreiber, or his efforts with Ilya Sadovsky as Piam. And perhaps most relevantly to the current discussion, he has put out music on 12th Isle (among other labels) as part of his S A D project together with Vasily Stepanov. So him and Karpov are quite at home together on 12th Isle—with the latter artist having also reissued X.Y.R.’s El Dorado there back in 2017—and with their Reverse Acceleration of Dragons LP as Radx, they have contributed another stellar release to the label’s ever expanding and increasingly captivating catalog of forward thinking and left-of-center ambient albums.

Sonically, Reverse Acceleration of Dragons circulates a balanced center-point between the work of both Karpov and Dobrovolski…while at times spreading out into surprising territories of heavenly radiance and wondrous melodic warmth. Vintage synthesizers and etheric electronics create multi-hued layers of mystifying haze that flux and flow while field recordings add naturalistic tone and texture. Sequencer star-trails dance in a dreamworld where brushstrokes of guitar paint the mix in majestic colors of both sunshine and melancholia, and exotic environments of forest, fog, and sea are evoked via sorcerous weavings of sample and soundscape. The album finds inspiration in the work of Kim Cascone…founder of the legendary experimental chillout label Silent…and I sense definite connections to Heavenly Music Corporation, and especially his collaborative Unidentified Floating Ambience compilation with Don Falcone and Paul Neyrinck. As well, the album takes further conceptual inspiration—and its dragon based title—from the literature of Michael Swanwick.

Radx - Reverse Acceleration of Dragons (12th Isle, 2025) On the A-side, “Calm Vortex” opens with chord swells constructed from deep sea ambience and harmonious organ hum, with popping bubbles and submarine sparkles adding color to the stereo spectrum. A sampled voice describes island exploration under echo while sunstrokes of acoustic guitar wander into a gentle journey of transcendence…these soft solar solos and threads of tremolo picked filigree. Sandy snare taps sit under subsuming reverberation to form a semblance of a rhythm, and eventually aqueous synth voices sing through it all…the vibe radiant and resplendent. “Ovgo’s Etheric Mind” comes next, with its hazing layers of tonal buzz, and vibrato-effected laser waves descending and decaying. Rumbling and pulsing basslines refuse to conform, and naturalistic tonalities with a lulling aura intermingle with bleeping blooping textures from some futuristic beyond. Lofi rustles and scrapes dominate the background, and swells of somber subsonics carry Formanta arps that incandesce like strands of glowing gemstones…though it’s as if everything is seen through a faded and fuzzy filter…like degraded filmstock, or like the warping effect of a half-forgotten memory.

The last track on the A-side…and perhaps the highlight of the album (at least for me)…is “Heavenly Shepherd of SIlence,” in which gentle percolations of synthesis and bubbling arp patterns dance and dazzle amidst insect buzz and looping bird chatter. Feelings of joyous ebullience and wistful wonder intertwine, and flutey tones blow into the mix to create something that sounds like a slightly more 2nd wave post-rock interpretation of Ishinohana, with hints of Hatchback as well. And eventually, further sequential structure of towering size and scope push the song towards the infinite expanses of a forever blue sky. Tremolo-picked guitar patterns add a further sense of epic scope and forlorn fantasy, and my mind connects to prime era Yume Bitsu and also Explosions in the Sky. There is that same sort of emotional catharsis achieved here, but Radx still retain their connections to meditative minimalism and ambient introversion, with the track never exploding into a cliched climax, and instead riding astral currents of soul-soothing serenity, wherein syncopated synths sparkle like outer-dimensional crystals and beauteous guitars waver under dream-layers of delay that ebb and flow like some ocean of luminous light.

The B-side starts with the epic “Gaia Hypothesis” and chime strands sparkling around spiritual sirens as they sing from some faraway fantasy island. Exotic electronics evoke both electrified coconuts knocking against each other as well as clipped pan-pipe sequences, and a delirium sway develops with equatorial atmospherics wafting and wavering like a tropical mirage. Of all the tracks, the vibe here most closely evokes the work of X.Y.R., with an organic daydream dub throb that’s not too far of from something you might find on Tourist perhaps…but everything is taken even further towards a celestial seaside dreamworld, wherein psychotropic synth leads play sunburnt squelch solos that blend and blur into the balmy background ether. And the whole thing seems to flow to a rhythm while simultaneously hovering in place…like infinite motion as eternal stasis…a hallucinatory island groove stuck forever in time. The closing track is “Liminal Space” with its mellotronic orchestrations and chirping wavefronts of insectoid sound. Starless sequences join mutating animal calls, old school cinematic fx, ringing bells, and symphonic shadows as an almost Carpenter-esque bass arp prowls through the layers of sonic mysterium, and everything slowly pulses…almost as if breathing. Decaying delay repetitions and cello bow strokes billow into the void, and bug-sourced buzz and birdsong are manipulated into an abstract body of psychedelic static, with wild winds phasing in counterpoint, and alien liquids dropping onto hyper-elastic surfaces.

(images from my personal copy)

Radx - Gaia Hypothesis (from Reverse Acceleration of Dragons, 12th Isle 2025)

X.Y.R., 2023-09-23, BISK-III, Dom Radio, Saint-Petersburg

#sashaperova #x.y.r.#music photography #concert photography #domradio #reportage #concert

X.Y.R. and Dravier - Ancient Coral

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x.y.r. - Aquarealm - I guess it’s just all New Age today, as x.y.r. moves toward that style after more Fourth World releases (Not Not Fun)

The tenth official full-length by St. Petersburg synth savant Vladimir Karpov aka X.Y.R. is a liquid suite of surreal tranquility, divined and designed to soundtrack the shimmering mysteries of underwater life: Aquarealm. Inspired by vintage Soviet cartoons, nature documentaries, and his own colorful aquarium fish, the album’s seven songs share a mood of contemplative depths and dizzying beauty, adrift in deepwater currents and bioluminescent tides. Hazy tones swell and swirl while crystalline keys, loops, and echoes swim in the periphery, rising like bubbles to the surface. Karpov describes these compositions as flights of fantasy, born of an oceanic muse as idyllic as it is infinite. It’s music simultaneously serene and cinematic, conjuring blue horizons of kelp forests swaying above rainbow reefs, casting shadowplay on sandy floors. A realm both real and imagined, submerged but transcendent, rippling from the mind’s eye to the great beyond.

#x.y.r.#new age #electronic #ambient #russia #not not fun #2022 #vladimir karpov

Reviews 396: Radx

(images from my personal copy)

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