To help continue the much-needed support for the people of Ukraine, we have produced a compilation from one of our favorite Ukrainian-based netlabels, Energostatic Records. Released as part of our Portals deep dive series, the feature includes a remaster of specifically curated tracks, in both individual and mix form. These tracks are available on the ASIP Bandcamp page as Name Your Price, with all proceeds going to Save The Children and their specific activities supporting Ukraine at this time. A big thank you to label owner Marian for allowing this project to happen as he deals with life in Kyiv right now, the artists for their participation, and Rafael Anton Irisarri for kindly providing his mastering services. Also, an advanced thank you to all those who listen and support at this very important time. ~‘Netlabels’ are essentially extinct in today’s music landscape by definition. Of course, there are still labels that just focus on digital releases, but Netlabels came about during a time when there were little to no platforms monetizing digital releases. Digital distributors were reserved for big or established labels as the streaming era ramped up. And Bandcamp didn’t exist. Netlabels were the next logical step after the file-sharing era (Soulseek et al), where instead of P2P servers and software, artists and label began to push their own agendas online, making files available freely on the internet, often under a Creative Commons license and many through a myriad of MP3 blogs that powered this exciting period. It was also, somewhere at this point in time, coincidentally, that the very first iteration of ASIP was also born, diving deep into MP3 blogs and following various Netlabels religiously. Finding a Netlabel’s basic website or archive.org page was the Bandcamp profile of its day. Energostatic was pretty late to the ‘Netlabel game’. Their first release didn’t arrive until 2010 when many Netlabels were either fizzing out already or converting to more modern release methods. But Energostatic’s ethos and approach to providing music against a strict aesthetic, for free, made them a torchbearer for the dying art of sharing music online through small yet beloved corners of the internet. As ASIP began in 2008, Energostatic was one of the many Netlabels I followed, and as curators of dub techno in various forms, they operated within another small yet burgeoning scene it seems, given dub-techno as a genre also seems to have dwindled in popularity in recent years. The writing was perhaps, on the cards for Energostatic, as Marian ceased operations of the label in 2017. But with 49 releases, there was (and still is) a big chunk of music to dig into, which for anybody new to the label, could become a little overwhelming to discover, especially since that number includes several compilations with 20+ tracks each, and many of the artists don’t seem to be very active anymore. To help support the people of Ukraine during this time in a small way, I reached out to label founder Marian to see if he would like to raise money through a compilation that spotlighted some of my favorite music from the label’s era. Marian had previously released as part of our early Places Series, as Marc Atmost, where he created a track based on some of his early memories in Ukraine (an unsettling and poignant listen under today’s circumstances). Today, Marian is on the ground in Kyiv, doing what he can to survive and support his community.The majority of the Energostatic catalog is still available for free on Bandcamp, should you wish to explore it yourself. Ranging from Space Ambient to drone; dub-techno and DnB; it became a bittersweet task to sift through the hundreds of tracks and pull together this compilation for a good cause. With the owner and label based in Ukraine (if Netlabels were to even have a ‘base’ of course), the majority of the artists on the label were friends of Marian, so a good majority were Ukraine and