As a co-founder of the electronic label Faktura, Artem Dultsev is a champion of left-field sounds from Russia’s Ural region. The austere press photos for his project metra.vestlud typically center on hooded figures, thickets of hardware, and gritty spaces. But his music is surprisingly bloopy, as if melded from digital raindrops falling on Jell-O. Dulstev’s new full-length, Ashes That Made the Shape of My Dreams, is meandering and humid, and arrives via bohemian California institution Not Not Fun, where it lands seamlessly alongside twinkly experimental releases from Shine Grooves, Yayoba, and Frunk29. More than anything else in the NNF catalog, Ashes feels like a spiritual companion to x.y.r.’s 2023 record Aquarealm: Both albums are wordless, somewhat…
