Cold Sector interview: ‘I believe that in wartime periods it is not only possible but also necessary to make long-term plans’
Cold Sector
During the spring, I discovered the mysterious Ukrainian solo project Cold Sector, a side project of the almost equally enigmatic Entangled System. The man behind both projects – whom we will simply refer to by his first name, Dmitry – uses his music as a sonic reflection on our growing dependence on digital systems, the vulnerability of modern infrastructure, and the invisible tensions that characterize today’s technological world. These themes are translated into an impressive debut album simply titled “Cold Sector”, released independently.
Musically, this Cold Sector album presents an exceptionally elaborate and immersive composition in which Dark-Ambient, Electro, Industrial, and even Noise elements merge into a desolate yet captivating atmosphere. Across its eight tracks, the Cold Sector album draws the listener into an imaginary journey through the darkness and uncertainties of modern times. The result is an extraordinarily creative and meticulously crafted work that figuratively blew me away. It marks a truly grandiose beginning for an artist whom I was fortunate enough to catch for a few questions, despite the ongoing war in his homeland and his relentless drive to create. (Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)
Cold Sector interview
Q: Could we perhaps start with an introduction to Cold Sector? Who is behind this musical project, and what does this music mean within your artistic vision, alongside the project Entangled System?
Dmitry:My name is Dmitry. Due to the current situation in Ukraine, I would like not to reveal my full name, because some topics touched upon in the music, or in this interview, can be interpreted ambiguously. Cold Sector is my second one-man project; the first one is Entangled System and it’s more focused on Dark-Ambient with elements of Industrial and electronic sounds, whereas Cold Sector leans closer to a more rhythmic Electro-Industrial sound with elements of Ambient.
The only thing that unites these projects in my artistic vision is the desire to convey the feeling of a post-apocalyptic world through music: both the period after a catastrophe and the tension and decay leading up to it. And, since the causes of such disasters can be different, this is also reflected in the project concept.
I would describe Entangled System as the project which idea is leaning more towards the atmosphere of uncertainty associated with technological experiments and the consequences of human interference in uncontrollable processes, to the aesthetics related to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident. Cold Sector is more focused on the possible consequences of technological progress and human interaction with the systems they have created: military equipment, industrial mechanisms, resource extraction, computer technologies, and the gradual transformation of the surrounding world into a cold technological environment.
Q: At this very specific moment, the war in your homeland, Ukraine, is still ongoing. For those of us who are far removed from the war zone, everything seems distant and, above all, surreal. But how do you experience this as a human being, and what meaning and value do music and cultural life still hold in such circumstances?
Dmitry:Of course, war is a terrible reality, and it affects not only everyday life but also creativity. However, I cannot say that I would like to directly reflect this in my music. Personally, I would like peace to come as soon as possible, because the costs of war are too high, and, in my opinion, the conflict’s continuation only worsens the situation in the country. We all only live once, and it is necessary to not underestimate it.
Speaking of personal struggles, the war makes me anxious. Living in such conditions, no one can feel completely safe: there are frequent air attacks, and it’s not possible to foresee whether a UAV/rocket will pass by or it will be shot down right over residential areas.
In such conditions, creating and working with sounds, and not just listening to it, helps to better distract from anxious thoughts and continue thinking about the future, even if it remains unclear. I think music, regardless of its genre or circumstances, is capable of affecting many people this way.
Q: To what extent have the war and all the suffering and loss it entails impacted your music? Do you notice a difference in your composition and artistic approach before the war and now, during the ongoing conflict?
Dmitry:Well, from a visual and atmospheric point of view, even long before the war, I liked post-apocalyptic imagery that can be found in music, games, and movies. I have always had a special interest in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, and am glad that I visited it when it was available for such activity. I was also influenced by Der Blaue Reiter. I got glimmered with enthusiasm by this project’s music to start working with a similar aesthetic myself, including the use of Martial-Industrial elements, which in some way also reflected in the sound of Entangled System.
In general, my interest in creating music appeared back in my youth. I listened to Dark-Electro and different genres similar to it and always had the desire to one day try creating my own music. However, various limitations, including technical ones, delayed this process for a long time. It was only around the end of 2021 that I began actively experimenting: at first, studying FL Studio, plugins, and then trying to find my own sound. The beginning of the war in 2022 accelerated this process because there was a feeling of the necessity to realize my creative ambitions while there was still the opportunity. Realizing at that time that I was best at creating music close to dark ambient, I decided to focus on it.
I think that military actions in any case affect the creative process and the way an artist wants to convey the atmosphere through sound. Although, as I have already said, I try to consciously limit the impact of the current conflict on my creativity, yet it is probably impossible to completely shield myself from the influence of what is happening.
Q: Earlier this year, you released the self-titled debut album by Cold Sector. How did the need arise to start another project alongside Entangled System and were there specific influences or references that shaped this music?
Dmitry:Due to my interest in music that varies from Post-Punk, EBM, and Dark-Electro to Industrial, Rhythmic-Noise and IDM, it is quite difficult for me to keep my creativity within just one style. Alongside my work on Entangled System, I was constantly trying to create something with a harsher and more rhythmic sound. Gradually, as I improved my composing skills and began to better understand the specific kind of what interests me, I realized that I would like to make a full-length album that would sound close to Electro-Industrial. At the same time Entangled System remains a predominantly Dark-Ambient project, which already includes elements of different genres. Therefore, I decided to create a side project – Cold Sector, within which I could focus specifically on a more rhythmic and Industrial sound.
The fundamental differences between the projects primarily lie in the musical styles. Entangled System was conceptually influenced, as I have already mentioned, by Der Blaue Reiter, as well as by the Ukrainian composer Alexey Omelchuk and the project Mooze, who participated in creating the soundtrack for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game series. There was also some influence from projects such as Atrium Carceri, Raison D’être and Dark Sanctuary, which I listened to a lot before. It’s a bit harder for me to describe the influences on Cold Sector, but the ones I would like to mention are Flint Glass, Orphx and The Opposer Divine. In addition, many releases on the Aliens Production, Hands Productions, and Ant-Zen have had a certain impact on my perception of the sound.
Q: I believe I understood that “Cold Sector” deals with the dangers of digital systems in which algorithms are playing an increasingly prominent role, especially when errors occur. In our modern world, this seems more like reality than fiction. What exactly were you trying to express, and what are your concerns or fears regarding this evolution? And what might we expect from the future?
Dmitry:I am truly concerned about the gradual introduction of AI into an increasing number of areas of life and humanity’s growing dependence on such technologies. Undoubtedly, artificial intelligence itself is a useful tool capable of facilitating many processes and actions. But at the same time, it seems to me that such systems are overly intelligent and could potentially approach the level of human thinking. The problem is that if such technologies are once deeply integrated into critically important systems, the consequences of errors could be catastrophic. Humans are prone to making mistakes, and such AI systems to some extent inherit this vulnerability. That is precisely why, in a certain sense, I feel closer to old analog systems and mechanisms, or very simple algorithms – it follows the rules of formal logic and its behavior is predictable. AI is also based on logic, but the different kind of it – more internal, which over time may become too complex for full understanding and control by humans.
In essence, this idea is what underlies Cold Sector’s debut album. It is a kind of scenario about what could happen if digital technologies, in particular AI, gained a form of self-awareness, somewhat close to human, but was guided by a completely different logic. In my vision, such a system would gradually begin to develop autonomously, resist external control, and penetrate into different, e.g. analog, systems, creating disruptions and instability. It is reflected in the tracks “Intrusion” and “Signal Propagation”. Then the system would likely try to completely break out of human control affecting even strategic sub-ones such as nuclear-armed submarines – this is what the track “Data Leak” is about. After that, humanity would probably try to stop what was happening – this is the idea behind “Search Sector”, “Containment Protocol” and “Contact Gained” – but most likely either unsuccessfully or at the cost of enormous destruction. The bonus track “Into the Storm” is a kind of epilogue to this story – it conveys a sense of landscape emptiness and radioactive dust spreading over the destroyed world. Of course, I hope that such a scenario never becomes reality. But it seems to me that nowadays there are much more reasons for such concerns than there were a few years ago.
Q: How did you transform all these ideas into music and eventually into this Cold Sector album? Could you give us some more insight into the entire composition and production process? Which instruments, software, or tools did you use?
Dmitry:As I have already mentioned, while working on music for Entangled System, I experimented with more rhythmic and Industrial sound. Thus, in 2023 and 2024, the demos of “Search Sector” and “Signal Propagation” were done, although at that time they were still quite raw and in need of refinement. A clearer understanding of the album’s concept came later, in 2025, when “Where Machines Are Born” and “Contact Gained” were recorded. It was these tracks that largely set the structure and the feeling of the beginning and the end of the story. After that, the process turned into putting pieces together: I immediately understood which tracks formed the framework of the album and all that remained was to fill in the gaps and refine the existing material so that it would fit organically into the overall concept.
Usually my creative process begins with an idea or an image that I think through and then try to turn into sound sketches. Often this doesn’t seem to get sorted out easily, but sometimes there is a kind of breakthrough when it becomes clear how exactly the music should sound. In such moments I try to make the most of this state and bring the tracks to the highest possible level of completion so that later, when this state starts to fade, I only have to put the final touches, which do not require deep immersion in the atmosphere.
The final stage of the album’s production was difficult because at that moment constant emergency power outages started to appear in Ukraine. With only about 8-10 hours of electricity per day in total, it was quite difficult for me to find appropriate time for creative activity.
The album was done in FL Studio without using any analog equipment. I used some plugins, mostly Dune 3 and Nexus 3, whose presets I could tweak to achieve the desired sound. For processing effects such as distortion or bitcrusher I mostly used the built-in FL Studio tools. The album also includes samples, e.g. a TTS-generated voice – it is heard at the beginning of the first track. Although, in general, I am not a supporter of using AI tools in music, in this case, given the concept of the album, adding such a “machine” voice seemed appropriate to me and helped enhance the atmosphere. I also used samples of recordings from numbered radio stations, which can be found in internet archives, samples of Morse code and sonar, engine sounds, and underwater currents.
Q: What were you trying to achieve artistically, and which audience are you hoping to reach with this project?
Dmitry: I wanted Cold Sector to be as close to Electro-Industrial as possible, but, at the same time, not limited by this genre’s specific traits, because the concept of the project itself requires different ways of conveying atmosphere. For me, genres in this case act as tools that allow expressing certain states, images, and parts of the story. For example, Ambient elements create a sense of isolation and underwater space, the Industrial and rhythmic ones – the operation of mechanisms and a technogenic atmosphere itself, and the noise ones – digital interference, instability, and the gradual destruction of the environment. Cinematic elements, in turn, help to perceive the album as a coherent narrative with a certain atmosphere and bring visual associations.
I wanted the music to give the listener a sense of being inside this world – cold, mechanized, and gradually getting out of control. I wanted the album to be perceived as a sonic journey or a fragment of some technogenic story, rather than just a set of tracks from a certain genre.
Q: In times of war, is it still possible to make long-term plans regarding your artistic projects? And what may we still expect in the future from Cold Sector and Entangled System?
Dmitry:Of course, I believe that in wartime periods it is not only possible but also necessary to make long-term plans. Creativity helps to get through such tough times, and any war ends sooner or later. Despite all the difficulties that the current situation causes for both everyday life and creativity, I still try to move forward gradually and continue making music.
I don’t have any set-in-stone plans yet, but, regarding Cold Sector, I would like to make a second album that would be a sort of continuation of the debut one. While the first album is more focused on underwater and digital infrastructure, the next one conceptually would be leaning more towards the progression of a post-apocalyptic story on the surface of the earth. However, it is possible that before these plans get turned into reality, a series of singles with no specific concept will appear. I am interested in working with vocals and right now experimenting in this direction. Since I have practically no experience doing my own vocals, I am looking for the right way for it to sound both musically and lyrically.
As for Entangled System, it is harder for me to speak about any plans at all. I can’t foresee if the inspiration for new material will come. But I would definitely like to re-release the first two albums as sort of redux versions with a more refined and improved sound.
Read the review of ‘Cold Sector’.
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