Ugra based multimedia artist Vlad Dobrovolski returns with his fifth solo album. Drawing on influences such as inhabitants of the depths of rivers and forests, “Playbacks For Dreaming” melds live and synthesized instrumentation, field recordings, and digital processing techniques in a new, more melodic and approachable direction.

Immersive site recordings open into melodic woodwinds, orchestral instrumentation, synths and gongs. Borrowing from the concept of “recursion” this widescreen staging cuts immediately to the core of the album — the way human beings use the faculty of imagination to aestheticize their built surroundings with architecture, images of distant locales, and domesticated flora and fauna to contain the anxiety for the natural world that surrounds human life.

A clear peak in Dobrovolski’s extensive catalog, “Playbacks For Dreaming” captures his work at a moment expanding his own musical and aesthetic approach — neither genre ambient nor musique concrète, but a unique sound world dense with conceptual play and moments of more traditional harmonic beauty.

"There's a pleasingly organic sound that underpins Dobrovolski's mutant electronics; it's unashamedly synthetic, but the way he manipulates each element, paying close attention to texture, tone and timbre, gives his instruments the illusion of life ... one sounds as if the sun has gone down, leaving the mind to play in the dry, moonlit dirt." — Boomkat

"Dobrovolski is a master at creating imaginative tonal textures and mixing them with hypnotic arpeggios that create lush, sonic dreams. Across the aerial divide, though, crystalized electronics are like gold and silver glitter hovering against the ceiling, creating prisms that reflect rainbows into the air. Whispers call from a distance, pulling our attention further into the chasm." — Foxy