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Before Russia unleashed its shocking, abhorrent, genocidal and unlawful invasion into Ukraine in February 2022, Bernard Van Isacker – Chief Editor of Side-Line – didn’t have designs on focusing his music publication on current affairs and events per se. “But it did happen,” Isacker, a Belgian citizen, confided in a candid interview with The Bad Penny on Friday, July 17. “I had witnessed something I never imagined … [would be] possible in a democratic country. Tyranny can hit quite close sometimes. You’d never imagine this would be possible in a democratic country, but it happens,” Isacker continued. “And it happened to me. [Not to mention] a lot of crap being published online about myself.”

In response, Isacker spearheaded an initiative to help the people of Ukraine. Specifically, a pay-what-you-want-compilation called United 1 – The Freya Files, a various-artists dark-wave compendium issued by Side-Line. The collection just came out today.The track list is below:

1. 2DCAT – “Never Enough”
2. AD:keY – “Deine Augen (Romantic-Mix)”
3. AL – “Forbidden”
4. Alien Life Frequency – “Confess”
5. Beckahesten – “Tomhetens Eviga Psalm”
6. Belle Morte – “Willow”
7. ChemSEXX (feat. Jessica Gelinas) – “Impulsive”
8. Cryogenic Echelon – “From Comatose (feat. MiXE1)”
9. Digital Factor – “Never” (feat. Franziska Haucke)
10. Dva Dereva – “Black Spring”
11. Elektrostaub (feat. Lilli K. Engelhardt) – “Too Far From the Pack (Female Edit)”
12. Emerge1 – “No Good For Me”
13. Error Fate – “Wake Up”
14. Even More – “A Rebel”
15. Epiphaneia – “From the Heights”
16. Gasoline Invertebrate – “So You’ve Been Canceled (feat. Pnakotica)”
17. Hanging Freud – “I Pray We Keep the World”
18. Arcana Obscura – “Hymn to the God of Fire (Remix)”
19. Indigo Ranch – “Monaco”
20. Krystal System – “Da Punch”
21. Lovelorn Dolls – “The Boy in the Box”
22. Metamorph – “Rock the Shadows Roll the Moon”
23. Mourning Candle – “Never”
24. Neikka RPM – “You’re My Poison”
25. Noemi Aurora – “Keep Your Tears to Water My Roots”
26. Palindrones – “Resonance Factor”
27. Pawn Pawn – “I Can Only Tell You With My Eyes”
28. Pixelgrinder – “Latex Mask (Remix)”
29. Platronic – “How to Ride the Wave”
30. Pororoka – “Де мене шукаєш”
31. Raudadler – “Sea of Dreams”
32. SINthetik Messiah – “Languish (Feat. Cat Hall)”
33. Stacia – “Drown”
34. T.LenC.Phal.X – “Feu De Brume”
35. The Neuro Farm – “Metamorphosis”
36. The True Union – “Blinded”
37. Unter Null – “Coming Up to Breathe”

The Bad Penny‘s On Tyranny series strives to highlight extraordinary artists who go to the greatest lengths possible to preserve the freedom of creative expression across the world and battle autocratic takeovers in societies across the world. While The Bad Penny typically interviews musicians for On Tyranny, we deemed this conversation about the role critical role art plays in preserving democracy to be the consummate conversation in the power of art to overcome the art of war.

This entry was posted on 07/17/2026 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Features, Interviews, On Tyranny, On Tyranny, Videos with tags authoritarianism, fascism, On Tyranny, trump, tyranny, Ukraine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.