On the eve of the 15th anniversary of Vladimir Karpov’s voyaging, visionary solo synth entity X.Y.R., the project unveils its vastest quest yet: Saga. Recorded and revised intermittently at his home studio in Alexandrovskaya, St. Petersburg across 11 years, the album’s four side-long songs span overlapping panoramas of twilit drone, desert wind, stargate electronics, and jungle temple percussion, alternately elevated and desolate. Working with his signature Soviet-era synthesizer, the Formanta-Mini, alongside an array of loop stations, FX pedals, percussive tools, and field recordings, the pieces hiss and shimmer with the tactile haze and bleached dreams of futures past.   From simmering fourth world dust (“Moonlight Raga”) and metronomic sci-fi ascensions (“Etherealm”) to eerie dub spelunks (“Mysterious Cave”) and regal primordial exotica (“Elysium”), Saga unspools the scope, subtlety, and sustained hallucinatory powers of Karpov’s transportive artistry.