Northern Electronics has assembled an impressive VA release in just a few days with all proceeds going towards Ukrainian war relief. It’s a no-brainer to get “A Dove Has Spread Her Wings: Relief for Ukraine” featuring 34 cutting edge tracks for just $15 to support children suffering under war.
The opening tracks are appropriately sombre, rising like steel grey skies on an uncertain morning. There’s a hushed feeling, an apprehension, crackles of static electricity. Distant sounds, eerily unrecognizable, ping off a ground frozen solid.
It’s a wonder that Northern Electronics got so many well produced tracks from a huge variety of artists in such a short amount of time. Tracks like Claudio PRC’s “The Darkest Hour” with it’s low warbling bass, almost probingly uncertain as it unfolds, capture a deep sense of unease.
The oscillating massive voltage of a downed power line crackles under manic drums on Evigt Morker’s “Axa Delta”. The kick, initially methodical, slowly picks up speed on “Unity” with a change that begins imperceptibly but is soon undeniably unstoppable, having already acquired too much momentum while you weren’t paying attention.
This great selection even includes rave mainstay Dasha Rush, who delivers “Mental Highway”—a highly articulated serpent of liquified superheated metal, bubbling under extreme pressure. Another surprise comes from Shifted’s track “Wire It Shut”, which was seemingly made from a fusion of dry brush rattling in the darkness, wind moving at high speeds over airplane wings, and the static of an AM radio scanning a red sky, like the terrifying drone of a propeller which goes silent in impulses like a heartbeat. Much of the percussion, intentionally or not, bears some resemblance to the rhythmic thumping of a human circulatory system on overdrive; listen to the warm, shuddering kick on “Talisman”, for example.
“I Am Nothing” expands with flickering emotion, an intricate and buzzy broken beat supporting inspiring swells of resilient, resplendent sadness. A similar note of elegiac poignancy is struck on the more frightening sounding “Antagonist”, which generates some mysterious anxiety with fake-out risers that go nowhere but back to the kick like trap doors.
On top of brutal, pummeling drumlines, “Bleached” features a doppler-slowed warning siren beaming out in frenetic, sinister impulses. At the greatest depths is Daniel Avery’s “U”, a song that chatters with the sub-frequency interference of massive, redlining speakers as it probes the absolutely oppressive basement of the techno sound, generated only at the pressures of the deepest ocean trench.
“Onip” is a deliberate jolt of self-certain energy, the kind of track one makes preparations to, steeling themselves for an uncertain future. LF58’s “Utopia” offers a nice moment of hope in a track that sounds delightfully modular and generative, like television stations reinstating broadcasts, or birds returning to their rightful place in the sky.
It is only $15 for over thirty, truly excellent tracks across “A Dove Has Spread Her Wings: Relief for Ukraine”. All of the proceeds go to UNICEF to help the children suffering in Ukraine, so it’s really a no-brainer to purchase this one.
-Winston Mann
Check out Dirty Epic music recommendations here.
Listen to our podcasts here.
Find out more about our events here.
