Cape Cod
Electronic

 

Cape Cod is a Kyiv-based electronic project by producer and musician Maksym Sikalenko. His debut album CULT (2016) captured the spirit of Ukraine's rave culture renaissance and was mastered by Stuart Hawkes (Disclosure, Amy Winehouse). In 2018, Maksym released ECHOES, a cosmopolitan album featuring international vocalists like Mickey Shiloh (USA) and Richard Farrell (Denmark). The album gained global recognition, with Spotify streams and interviews in outlets like DMC World. Known for energetic live shows and performances at festivals like Atlas Weekend and White Nights, Cape Cod won Best Electronic Artist at the 2018 Jagermeister Music Awards. A few years ago, Cape Cod's live shows was joined by a permanent vocalist, Oleksii Bodnar. In 2023, the band released a Ukrainian-language EP, "Syluetamy Vitryn" ("Silhouettes of Storefronts"), which was immediately nominated for Ukrainian music awards. His mission is to spotlight Ukraine’s vibrant electronic scene on the global stage.

 

Anna Aloka
Electronic with global folk influences

 

Anna Aloka is a Kyiv-based DJ, vocalist, and event organizer. Her performances have graced venues such as Berlin's Katerblau and Klunkerkranich clubs, as well as festivals including Bucht der Traumer and Zugvogel, DAS Fest, c/o POP Convention in Germany. She represented Ukrainian music at The International Charlemagne Prize in Aachen in 2023. Back home, Anna is revered for her sets at festivals like WAVE Oasis, Vibronica, and Rychkovyi Rave, as well as her personally curated Nova Era & Muses events. Throughout her career, she has shared stages with acclaimed electronic acts like Monolink, Stereo MC’s, Rebolledo, Mira, Iorie, and many more. Anna's musical style blends electronic beats with global folk influences, spanning from laid-back downtempo to energetic indie dance, house, and melodic techno. She also incorporates traditional Ukrainian singing into her performances.

 

Niche live electronica

A visionary Ukrainian live electronic artist from Kyiv, renowned for crafting evocative, dreamlike soundscapes that transcend genre boundaries. Her music blends atmospheric IDM and melodic techno with cinematic soundscapes and ambient textures, creating a signature sound that is both delicate and powerful. Weaving rich, saturated tones, NFNR explores themes of vulnerability and inner resilience. Performing since 2014, NFNR has been featured at showcases such as ESNS, SHARPE, Focus Wales and What’s Next In Music 2024, festivals Skaņu Mežs, Ars Electronica, UpToDate festival. NFNR`s music has been released on labels such as Corridor Audio label (UA), WAAGE Records (Berlin), Mystictrax (UA), СИСТЕМА (UA), Flaming Pines(UK) and Cashmere Radio (Berlin). She also composed the score for Intercepted, a powerful documentary premiered at the 74th Berlinale, which examines the full-scale Russian invasion on the territory of Ukraine.

 

Indie pop

Ukrainian electronic indie-pop trio that will turn your life into a real-time movie. The cinematic music of Disappeared Completely blends soothing acoustics with smooth electronic synths and organic duo-vocals. It’s like The XX married Massive Attack with Radiohead mood. More than a million streams won’t lie, so join the club.

 

Acoustic folk

sophistication. is a one-woman band guided by the Kyiv based musician Sofia Shvager who combines an acoustic guitar with a piercing voice making quite a minimalistic, calm and chill sound. She enriches her rather folk sound to create a slow city-meditation through her stories, a bit dark, a bit melancholy but still quite and warm.

 

Indie rock, Psychedelic rock

Love’n’Joy is a Kyiv-based rock group is one of the most successful Ukrainian live bands internationally, playing hundreds of concerts per year all over Europe, including festivals like Reeperbahn and support acts for Kikagaku Moyo, Boogarins, The Shivas and Petrol Girls with the plans to expand to the US and Canada in 2023. Their music is filled with sunny 60s vibes, the sea breeze of the Crimean coast, and trippy psychedelia. But they also have elements of hard rock – with Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin among their influences – and plenty of heavy guitars, which give their sound a rougher edge. The strong lyrics reflect the spirit of a new, resurgent Ukrainian culture.

 

Alternative Electronic

Kurs Valüt is an electro duo from Dnipro, founded in 2017 to make minimal wave in Ukraine great again. Their music is created first and foremost for live performances. All songs are written in Ukrainian. All lyrical subjects and dark electronics carefully turn existential crisis into unstoppable energy on the dancefloor. Kurs Valüt has two LPs out and recently signed with German label No EMB Blanc.

Postman
acoustic, indie

Postman, given name Kostiantyn Pochtar, is a Ukrainian musician, multi instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter who splits his life between Kyiv and Wroclaw. Although his main influences come from the 60's, his music is modern city folk at its finest. While the acoustic guitar serves as Postman’s main instrument for live performances, his studio albums are often ornamented with rich arrangements that season his music with folk-rock, psychedelic rock and baroque-pop elements. Postman has played hundreds of shows in 11 European countries and was a supporting act for the bands Warhaus, Seafret and Flunk.

 

R&B, dream pop

Zbaraski is a musician and sound producer from Lviv, who was born in the city and grew up in the mountains. He creates a sound unexpected for the Eastern European scene, and one which can be singled out for how well-produced it is. His debut EP Bo Ya Tak Khochu (‘Because I Want It Like That’) was released in 2019 to public acclaim, and established Zbaraski on Ukrainian scene as a promising new wave artist. In a nutshell, Zbaraski’s ‘bedroom pop’ music combines old R&B, soul, and hip-hop, with a base of Ukrainian lyrics sung in silky falsetto.

 

Electronic

Insomnia Taxxi (Iryna Novikova) is an international sound artist, composer, music producer in experimental electronic music and sound design from Ukraine, who lives and works in Sweden. She is active in film, theatre, sound design for digital art, as well as creator and practitioner of conceptual electronic music compositions. Iryna's sound world is characterized by dark melodies, experimental music with compositional form, vocals and synthesizers. She often uses unique video material during her concerts and collaborates with video artists and live VJs. All her work has a metaphysical, mythological, contemplative, social or political subtext.

 

Electronic

Hidden Element is an electronic act from Kyiv. By blending elements from breakbeat, techno and ambient, producer Igor Kirilenko creates forward-thinking music with shifty rhythms, cinematic samples and deep textures. Inspired by classic sci-fy movies, it is a perfect soundtrack for both crouded ecstatic club nights and solitary mind wandering.

 

 

 

Art rock

Sheetel is a four-piece rock band based in Kyiv, featuring singer/keyboardist Anton Sheetel, drummer Vova Akhremenko, cellist Artem Litovchenko, and bassist Oleksandr Musevych. Although the band’s genre can be defined as art rock, they distinguished themselves by drawing from a wider set of influences. Merging art rock, trip-hop, jazz, grunge, post-punk into a blend of shamanistically repetitive soundscape creates a meditative and hypnotic listening experience. The band is most loved for their live performances.

 

 

Electronic

The Lazy Jesus is a Ukrainian sound producer, DJ and musician. His music is a vast texture of percussion and elements of Ukrainian roots. His DJ sets are surfing the waves of urban ethnic, ethno bass, breaks, footwork, jungle, zouk bass, beila funk and beila bass. In 2021, he presented the author's audiovisual project UA TRIBAL, in which he shows his vision of presentating Ukrainian ethnicity in a new form. In 2022, he released his debut album "UA TRIBAL Vol.1" on the Tunisian-French label Shouka and went on a European tour with participation in major festivals.

 

 

 

Hip-hop

African-Ukrainian hip hop project created in early 2019 consisting of 3 sisters showing their unique cultural background in their songs, style and, most importantly, in their energetic, lively performances. A symbiosis of modern genres from trap to hip hop, quoting other styles from R’n’B to rock. Debut album and a UA tour ahead!

 

Indie pop

Tonka is Ukrainian progressive indie-pop project consists of vocalist Olena Karas, music producer and keyboardist Yaroslav Tatarchenko and drummer Denis Shvets. The band is distinguished with a minimalist naturalism in both music and visual aesthetics, and their compositions excite listeners with dynamic rhythms, non-trivial melodies and strong vocals.

 

Indie rock

The band Gapochka went through a number of powerful and drastic transformations, including playing at the Global Battles of The Bands in London, before arriving at its current duo format in 2017. Today the band comprises Katya Gapochka and Yevhen Yakshyn. In summer 2022, Gapochka had its first European tour in support of Ukraine and also a tour all over Czech Republic with a popular local band Lucia. Full of lyrics, old-school and post-punk motives, the indie rock duo plays a melting pot of music genres. Since their first release, Katya and Yevhen have shown themselves as a powerful union of daring guitar and exceptional vocals.

 

Break beat, Drum'n'bass

Junket is a band that was formed spontaneously on art exhibition where participants of Atomic Simao (Georgy Valchuk and Nikolai Shostov) created a symbiosis of electronic sound and live instruments (sax, flute). The specificity of the group is that they do not play pre-prepared compositions, but everything is created spontaneously, online, without a second double and the possibility of editing. Essentially their music an improvisational “fresh” created directly in front of the listener.

 

Electronic post-punk

Ragapop is a side project of Ruslana Khazipova and Anna Nikitina of Dakh Daughters, in collaboration with Anton Ocheretyanyy. The idea behind the band was to combine the things each member loves in a mixture of performing art and music, which gravitates toward post-punk aesthetics as well as towards some lo-fi electronics. The first EP Siasya is a tribute to the famous 19th century Ukrainian poet Ivan Franko. It’s based on his not so well known lyrics and brilliant translation of Oedipus the King by Sophocles.

 

Bedroom punk

Five twenty-something guys started rocking in the middle of nowhere and made their way to top festivals, including one of the major European stages, Sziget. Self-identified ‘bedroom punk’, The Unsleeping organically combine the destructive rock of IDLES with the tender indie melodies of The Neighbourhood. Prepare to sing along to every song & feel the full range of emotions, accompanied by Stanislavsky system-based dramatic performances, nicely reminiscent of Joy Division.

 

Electroacustic

DZ’OB is an electroacoustic band from Dnipro, Ukraine striving to combine classical music tradition with contemporary electronic approach. DZ’OB not only synthesizes genres like classics, IDM, techno, dubstep, but also comes up with unique, eclectic sounds that blur the lines within ages, and traditions. The band was founded in 2014 and consists of 5 instruments: oboe, bassoon, violin, cello and electronics.

 

Psychedelic

They're bringing an eclectic mix of electronic and live sound, using samplers, flute, violin, drums and guitars. Lyrics are in English, Ukrainian and Lithuanian. Their first LP Shuma was acknowledged as one of the best albums of 2016 in Ukraine. 2019 consisted of various tours to support their album Ulitakis. In 2020 they released new material with a band from Malawi.

Alyona Alyona 
Rap

OY Sound System 
Ethno-electronic

 

Electronic dream-pop

Krapka;KOMA is a Ukrainian multi-instrumentalist electronic girl duo. Following down the roads of indie-electronica, trip hop and nu-jazz, Ira and Alona break new ground using a crazy amount of instruments. Their sound is somewhere between atmospheric Bonobo and sonically challenging Radiohead. They have released an EP, three international collaborations, five music videos, a video game soundtrack and are performing abroad to support Ukrainian culture and the music scene and fundraising money for healthcare needs in their war-stricken homeland.

Gurt [Ó]
Future pop

Gurt [O] combines the Ukrainian literary tradition in texts with tropical dance electronics in the sound. The lyrical character in their songs tries to survive in the city jungle dealing with massive digitalization, FOMO and sociopathy. Since 2017 gurt [O] is a resident of the Masterskaya Label, founded by Ivan Dorn. They have 3 releases and won Jägermeister Music Awards in the category “Young Blood” in 2019.