Wings Over Wires, in collaboration with Gaza Birds Singing – the music initiative founded by Ahmed Muin Abu Amsha – is a 13‑artist album transforming a viral recording of Palestinian children singing under the drone‑buzz of Gaza warfare into club-ready sounds.
Tunisian drum & bass producer Hmenou’s Shala Yousheel reworks the horror for Wings Over Wires into defiant rhythm, shifting from deep dubstep into jungle, with the drop constructed from war-siren and helicopter-blade sound design. The track reframes instruments of fear into a propulsive, bass-driven journey. Alongside the compilation, it offers 13 reimagined visions of resistance from contributors across the SWANA bass music scene.
On the ground in Gaza, Abu Amsha’s story highlights the stakes behind this project. Displaced at least a dozen times since war erupted, he carried his instruments through every forced move. Amid tents, rubble, and displacement camps, he turned devastation into creative resistance. In Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, and later in other camps, he began teaching children music, founding Gaza Birds Singing – a collective of displaced kids and makeshift instruments crafting moments of hope through songs and shared rhythm.
Videos of the group – children singing against the constant buzz of drones overhead – went viral. One recording, in which children harmonize with drone noise, became emblematic of defiance: a “call-and-response with a duet partner no one would ever choose.”
Through Wings Over Wires, Hmenou and other contributors channel those raw voices and defiant spirit into a structured, club-frame context. The project bridges two worlds: the trauma-stitched reality of Gaza and the global dancefloor, turning loss into rhythm, silence into bass, and fear into solidarity, with with all proceeds directed toward the charity’s humanitarian work in Gaza.
For Gaza Birds Singing, the stakes go beyond art. The collective gives children uprooted and traumatized by war a sense of community, emotional refuge, and a creative outlet – a place to “sing for love, for freedom, for life.”
Hmenou’s involvement underscores how diasporic and regional club artists – rooted in North African traditions, Arab sonic archives, and modern bass sensibilities – can amplify and support humanitarian narratives. The sound-design choices in Shala Yousheel – transforming drones, sirens, and blades into rhythm – reflect a conscious decision to recontextualize trauma as catharsis. In a world where war often seeks to erase identity and hope, this compilation asks listeners to not turn away – but to hear, feel, and move.
Wings Over Wires – Tracklist
Hmenou – Shala Yousheel
Mettani & Roscius feat. Badiaa Bouhrizi – Sheel
3xOJ – Iron Bird
Ratchopper – LEELO
GoodMostlyBad – Yaqeen
Syqlone – Noor
Prophän – Carry My Pain
Acidfinky – Mizmar El Drone
Kasbah – Resilience
5amaseen – G2TM
Ramin – A Sheel for Hope
Yalla Soundsystem X Cheb GPT – Transmission
Omar Aloulou – To the Sea
