Xyrynx began with the intrusion of a synthesizer into the forest’s stillness — an act like throwing a stone into the mirror of a pond. The sound, born of the machine, did not destroy, but awakened hidden rhythms. I played, tuning the frequencies to the acoustic relief of the place, until a jay — like a living metronome — burst in just meters from my face, turning her alarm into dialogue. Her cries wove together with the sinusoids into a single code, the first layer of the future score.

The layers multiplied, like the growth rings of trees. Each new recording returned to the forest, layering upon the previous ones, as
birdsong flowed into the rumble of lava, sharper in scent than the sulfurous vapors themselves, and further — into the overtones of bronze — cast gongs. Metal, vibrating, became an extension of the natural landscape. The gongs, like the campanas of ancient temples, gathered sounds in space, drawing in wild guests. The forest turned into a chaotic attractor, where the living and the artificial merged in a shared dance.

The synthesizer expanded the boundaries of this dialogue. Its voices generated textures — the hiss of filters blending into the rustle of
leaves in the wind, and low-frequency waves dissolving into splashes against the riverbank far below. I shaped the parameters as if playing
a syrinx — that avian organ where air becomes voice. But while the syrinx created sounds, the synthesizer transformed them into the impossible, making the forest answer its call.

The shakuhachi, a bamboo flute, became a bridge between worlds. Its breath — hoarse and ancient — intertwined with electronic noise, like roots descending into soil. Air passing through it materialized emptiness, and the echo of the gong met the forest’s choir. It was a sound that could not be described, only felt — like the cold breath of dawn. Master of chimes — that is what I would call myself in this process. No longer a jeweler, but a blacksmith of resonances — gongs, bells, synthesizers — they sang in unison with the forest. Campanology, the science of bells, found a new dimension here: every strike of metal, every impulse of the synthesizer became part of a vast instrument, with the forest both performer and listener.

The project went on, but time dissolved into new cycles of recording and the surrounding world’s reaction. My textual notes, streams of
consciousness, and spectrograms merged into a single organism. Like in Delany's novel, where an instrument called a syrinx controlled not only sound but also light, scent, and form — so here, each element encoded a fragment of a greater whole. The jay’s alarm, the tremor of her wings, the synthetic timbres formed a language that seemed to be spoken by the earth itself.

By the end, Xyrynx ceased to be an experiment and became a ritual, in which machinery and wildness fed each other. The birds did not flee from the sounds; instead, they came to take part in this strange symbiosis. And when I played the shakuhachi, it seemed the wind would catch the notes and carry them into the sky, where they dissolved like clouds, leaving behind emptiness — and silence, alive, breathing, full of hidden resonances.

Credits:

Vlad Dobrovolski — Synthesizers, Gongs, Woodwind Instruments, Whispers,
Effects, Field Recordings

All music composed, arranged and produced by Vlad Dobrovolski

Release curated by Gleb Glonti

Artwork and Design by Violetta Postnova

Mastered by Mikhail Myasoedov