On one hand, the finest rock band on Ukraine’s alternative scene. On the other, just five guys playing tunes because they are friends and they enjoy it. The band has existed since 2013, and in its current line-up since 2019. 

Their discography holds several bangers and radio hits, among them “Птаха Фред” (Ptakha Fred) and “Припустим” (Prypustym, “Let’s Say”). Their first EP, “Deviate”, came out back in 2018; the second arrived in 2024 under the title “Пиріжок з любов’ю, злістю” (Pyrizhok z liuboviu, zlistiu, “A Pie with Love and Spite”). In November 2024, after years of waiting, their first full-length album “Справжній бедрум панк” (Spravzhnii bedrum pank, “Real Bedroom Punk”) arrived to considerable acclaim and won Album of the Year at the «Золота зоря Лірум» (Zolota zoria Lirum) awards. 

Every The Unsleeping release comes with a conceptual lyric video or music video. The band has sold out headline shows several years running, and in 2025 played to an audience of fifteen hundred for the first time. They perform at Ukraine’s biggest festivals, Atlas Weekend and Faine Misto, and further afield at Sziget in Hungary and the Austrian showcase Waves Vienna. In February–March 2025 they ran a mini-tour in support of the debut album, drawing almost 4,000 people across 6 shows and raising over UAH 1,300,000 for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 

«Пиріг і Батіг» (Pyrih i Batih) work in the genre of sung poetry, retelling the verse of Ukrainian poets through music. Live, they sound expansive and refined: guitar, violin, percussion, bassoon, oboe and double bass. 

Over the course of 2024 Pyrih i Batih went from a niche folk act, loved and listened to in narrow circles of the Lviv and Kyiv intelligentsia, to a cultural phenomenon in its own right, gathering a whole new layer of listeners around Ukrainian poetic language. Their setting of Павло Тичина’s (Pavlo Tychyna) poem «Гаї шумлять» (Hai shumliat, “The Groves Are Rustling”) became a genuine popular hit and drew over 30 million streams.

The musicians perform abroad often: in Germany, Denmark and Iceland. In Ukraine they fill the country’s landmark venues — the philharmonics of Kyiv, Lviv and Odesa, the House of Cinema and the House of Architects — and in 2025 they played their first major headline show at the International Centre of Culture and Arts, the October Palace. For several years running the band has toured de-occupied towns of the Slobozhanshchyna region, playing concerts there. 

Their discography includes «Замордовані: Подзвін перший» (Zamordovani: Podzvin pershyi, “The Tortured: First Toll”), set to the verse of poets killed by the Soviet regime, «Зелений» (Zelenyi, “Green”) with the poetry of Богдан-Ігор Антонич (Bohdan-Ihor Antonych), and «Колядницький» (Koliadnytskyi) with carols from across Ukraine, as well as live scores for Олександр Довженко’s (Oleksandr Dovzhenko) film «Земля» (Zemlia, “Earth”) and Борис Тягно’s (Borys Tiahno) «Фата Моргана» (Fata Morgana). 

Legends of Ukrainian alternative music and icons of rock style  — Фактично Самі (Faktychno Sami)   (ex Qarpa) are back on stage. They are the ones who tore apart packed little clubs in the 90s and 00s and played the «Червона Рута» (Chervona Ruta) festival — and who now do exactly the same to thousand-capacity venues in Ukraine’s biggest cities. 

The punk drive of Ірена Карпа (Irena Karpa), unstoppable slam and dancing at the front of the stage, and the unfaked spirit of true underground in every song — most of which you already know by heart.

In December 2024 Фактично Самі made a loud return, filling Atlas in Kyiv with fans. In 2025 they played a ferocious headline show at В'ЯВІ (V'YAVI), and their festival summer already holds a full list of confirmed dates. 

Kurs Valüt — an electronic duo from Dnipro, formed in 2017 to bring minimal wave to a Ukrainian audience. The line-up has never changed: Євген Гордєєв (Yevhen Hordieiev — music, lyrics, vocals) and Євген Касьян (Yevhen Kasian — drum machine, synthesiser). In 2022–2023 they played three European tours in support of the Musicians Defend Ukraine charity foundation.

Kurs Valüt lyrics are full of references to cultural moments, clichés and memes that circulate in Ukrainian media and social networks — «покращення» (pokrashchennia, “improvement”), «швидко гроші» (shvydko hroshi, “fast money”), «інтерсіті» (intersiti, “intercity”), «здобули» (zdobuly, “we have achieved”) and so on. The lyrics are in Ukrainian. 

Their discography holds two full-length albums: «Veselo» (2018) and «Kurs Valüt» (2021), both also released on vinyl. Their headline shows sell out in Kyiv, Dnipro, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk, and the duo are regulars at Ukraine’s biggest electronic parties and festivals, among them Black!Factory Festival and Brave!Factory. They release on the German label No EMB Blanc, which has not stopped them founding one of their own in Dnipro — Dnipropop.

Between 2016 and 2020 Стас Корольов (Stas Koroliov) earned wide recognition as a multi-instrumentalist and producer in the electronic band YUKO. In May 2021 he began a career under his own name with the solo record «О_х» (O_kh), which most of the country’s music critics and media named album of the year. 

When the full-scale invasion began, Stas stopped playing material from «О_х» and put together an audiovisual band of the same name, with whom he toured  eastern and southern Ukrainian cities under heavy shelling in 2022. In the autumn of 2022 he staged «Нескінченний концерт» (Neskinchennyi kontsert, “The Endless Concert”), playing an instrumental version of the song «Кав'ярня» (Kaviarnia, “Coffee House”) for 6 hours and 24 minutes without a break, until he had raised UAH 1,186,337 for «Госпітальєри» (Hospitallers). 

In 2023 Stas and the band toured the gamified concert programme "Цифровий утікач" (Tsyfrovyi utikach, “Digital Fugitive”), which they also brought to Berlin, Amsterdam and Liverpool as part of the music programme around Eurovision. In 2024 he released the instrumental album "R2: Цифровий утікач", performed live with a large ensemble at Brave!Factory. The full concert recording is available on YouTube. The Stas Koroliov project is now entering its third creative season with a new programme, to be premiered at festivals in the summer of 2025

A debut release, and millions of streams straight away. Few manage to reach the pedestal that fast. Структура Щастя (Struktura Shchastya) manages to do features with the top idols of Gen Z and play shows at the same time, without giving an inch on quality. 

Despite her youth, Ліза (Liza) holds a steady 400,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Her most popular track has passed 11 million streams, and her music regularly tops the lists of Ukrainian media. She fills thousand-capacity rooms in Kyiv and sells out shows in other Ukrainian cities. All of which makes the case that Liza is today the brightest of the Gen Z generation of musicians tearing up both TikTok and live stages. 

In two years of work Struktura Shchastya has released the album «Смуга» (Smuha, “The Stripe”), the mini-albums «Система Горя» (Systema Horia, “System of Grief”) and the EP «Ближче» (Blyzhche, “Closer”, together with Sad Novelist), and the full-length «ВОВК» (VOVK, “Wolf”). Her track «Силуети» (Syluety, “Silhouettes”), recorded with SadSvit, became one of the signature songs of 2022.

In the summer of 2025 Liza plans to release her next album

Legends of Ukrainian indie and standard-bearers of the famed Ternopil Wave — a band that shaped the sound of an entire era. They are the ones people listened to back in 2014 at the start of the road, and the ones people are coming back to now, new generations included.

In 2025 the band returned to the stage in style, filling a thousand-capacity room at Леся Квартиринка (Lesia Kvartyrynka), and in 2026 played a major headline show at Atlas. They are listened to both by the old guard who have been there from the beginning and by a new wave of listeners who discovered them at festivals. Their album «Shuma» was once called one of the most important releases of 2016 — and it is still held up as a model of sincere, inventive Ukrainian indie.

At kontrabass we are especially glad about this return, because we remember the magic of their shows in 2018–2019 very well. And it has not gone anywhere.

People’s Artist of the Underground, the guy behind the parody circles on Twitter and a drunken master of the interesting life — Ницик (Nytsyk) has been broadcasting his philosophy to the masses since 2019. 

The work of Ницо Потворно (Nytso Potvorno) is hard to file under any one musical category, and that is exactly what makes his eclectic storytelling, heavy music and crimson voice the most recognisable things on the Ukrainian indie scene. When Nytsyk comes on, everyone knows it is him. 

In 2023 he sold out Lviv twice and Kyiv together with Джозерс (Djozers), played the Файне Місто (Faine Misto) festival and released a track in collaboration with the «Повернись Живим (Come Back Alive)» foundation. 

A Nytso Potvorno concert carries elements of stand-up and open conversation with the audience in between outright bangers. Every one of his shows is unique, has a vibe of its own and stays with you for a long time.

In 2024 the artist was mobilised into the Defence Forces. In 2025 he drew his first thousand-capacity sell-out at Origin Stage in Kyiv

Magnetic, spellbinding, a breaker of hearts male and female alike — Анастимоза (Anastymoza).

The indie-pop project of Анастасія Сігітова (Anastasiia Sihitova) from Chernivtsi, moving confidently between the underground and the pop scene and gathering an audience from both — equally at home in indoor venues and at large festivals. She first became widely known through the viral track «Проси пробачення» (Prosy probachennia, “Say You’re Sorry”), with almost 10,000 videos on TikTok. «Хризантеми» (Khryzantemy, “Chrysanthemums”) drew over 7 million streams on Spotify and made it onto the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 soundtrack, widening her audience considerably.

Over the past two years she has released two LPs and played two major headline shows, at Atlas and Mezzanine. In 2025 she performed at Atlas Festival, one of the largest festivals in the country.

теорія розбитих вікон (Teoriia Rozbytykh Vikon, “Broken Windows Theory”) — kontrabass’s discovery of 2025 and a genuine source of support for their listeners. Alternative rock carrying honest stories about the inner lives of three friends who have been playing music together for years. 

In 2025 the band released their debut full-length album, and in early 2026 gave it a spectacular launch at their first headline show, in front of a thousand people at the Atlas club. 

теорія розбитих вікон stand out for a devoted fanbase that backs them on social media, creating fan accounts and countless videos built around the best moments in their songs.  

The band is currently working on new material, preparing for Atlas Festival 2026, and carrying on turning every accidental listener into a committed fan.

A band with a name that says it all, and one that gives you hope for the future of the Ukrainian underground. Проклятий Х** is a roundhouse kick to the chest and a hug tight enough to crack your ribs. 

Проклятий Х** have two full-length albums to their name, plus a dedicated track and video, «Спортивні повітряні роботи» (Sportyvni povitriani roboty, “Airborne Sports Work”), for the album «Епоха» (Epokha, “The Era”) by the Third Assault Brigade, and several singles. The legendary American stand-up comic Doug Stanhope took part in the recording of one of the albums. 

They will kick up dust behind the garages, wake up the polished crowd at a festival in the capital, become the freshest thing at an underground gathering, and get your second cousin reminiscing about his youth at your thirtieth birthday party. A grunge-punk sound that carries the irony of their upbeat tracks and the gloom of their darker ones equally well — songs full of real life, in spite of everything.

Doomers from Kalush, “eternal freshmen” and the most durable act on the Ukrainian indie scene, playing outsider pop music with the effect of empathy therapy. Known for features and hits — «Додому» (Dodomu, “Home”), «Піф паф файє» (Pif paf faiie), «Це дурня, а не любов» (Tse durnia, a ne liubov, “That’s Nonsense, Not Love”), «Післямова» (Pisliamova, “Afterword”) and many others that have lodged firmly in the heads of all kinds of listeners. 

They sold out Lviv twice and Kyiv together with Ницо Потворно (Nytso Potvorno). Straight afterwards they re-released two albums — Ускладнений машинний біт (Uskladnenyi mashynnyi bit, “Complicated Machine Beat”) and Абсолютна брехня (Absoliutna brekhnia, “Absolute Lie”). Then they went on a nationwide tour with LYKHO and played the Файне Місто (Faine Misto) festival — and that was only the first half of 2023. 

The band puts on an exceptional show, with theatrically precise pacing and emotional carousels of rises, falls and powerful climaxes.

Shmiska (Шміска) – a young Ukrainian artist from Chernihiv who has lived in Paris since the start of the full-scale invasion. She has worked in the arts all her life, training professionally in opera singing, piano and acting. In time she realised she needed to do something entirely different, and started writing music in genres new to her.

Her songs spread widely on TikTok, and the track «Запальничка» (Zapalnychka, “Lighter”) drew over a million streams across 2023, while the hit «DVD» has now passed 10 million. Рената (Renata) performs at festivals and concerts in France and Ukraine, including charity events in support of the Ukrainian army.

In 2023 Shmiska performed at the «Rock en Seine» festival alongside French musicians. The booking came as a surprise to the artist herself, given that the same stages hosted Placebo, boygenius, Foals and Billie Eilish. This year she released her debut EP «Мереживо» (Merezhyvo, “Lace”) and a video for the song «Люди» (Liudy, “People”), bringing artists from the contemporary indie scene into the shoot. 

сервант (Servant) — a band with an energetic, overdriven sound that pulls even total strangers to their music into the slam from the first track.  

Their tracks go viral for good reason: they stick from the first chorus. Their most popular song, «Мадам» (Madam), has over a million streams and tears the room apart every time they play it live. 

The band gigs constantly: at Faine Misto 2025 they drew a crowd of devoted fans to the Light Stage, and at Atlas Festival they pulled even the artists waiting backstage into dancing.

пропаща сила (propashcha syla) — shameless, romantic heart-thieves and, on the side, a Kyiv indie-rock band. Over a few years on stage they have built a recognisable guitar-indie sound with catchy, ironic pop hooks. The band is steadily carving out a niche of its own, as shown by the stylistic followers appearing in their wake and the rapid growth of a devoted fanbase. 

In 2025 пропаща сила released their debut album «показники особистісного зросту» (pokaznyky osobystisnoho zrostu, “Personal Growth Metrics”), premiered a video for the track «переобіжайся» (pereobizhaisia) and played their first headline show at Mezzanine in the capital. 

Their most popular tracks, «сирець» (syrets) and «забуду» (zabudu, “I Will Forget”), have half a million streams each. 

The band has already made its mark on the Atlas Festival stage and at numerous mini-festivals in Kyiv, earned a YoungBlood nomination at the Jäger Music Awards, and made the shortlists of the МУЗВАР (MUZVAR) and MEGOGO awards.

heavenphetamine formed in Tokyo in 2018. The permanent line-up is Hiroki Oda (keys, vocals) and Sara Oda (drums, vocals), who play with session musicians from time to time.

Over the past 2 years the band has played dozens of headline shows across Ukraine, mixing them with mini-tours in Europe. In 2023 they released their first album on the Ukrainian label kontrabass promo. Touring Ukraine, they played even in small towns such as Kremenchuk and Nizhyn, raising funds for the Musicians Defend Ukraine foundation as they went. In 2024 they performed at Ukraine’s largest festival, Atlas United.

An intellectual cocktail of genres, a balance between wildness and harmony, calm and tension. Most important of all is their mission: «We understand that music will not stop the war in Ukraine. Even so, you have shown us the powerful beauty born of living every moment as though it were the last. We want to share that feeling with you from the stage.» And heavenphetamine do it beautifully.

Zlypni — three punks from Ivano-Frankivsk making Carpathian psychedelic indie rock with the spirit of the mountains and of summer in it. The band folds psychedelia, rap, ethno, indie folk and a great deal more into a single stream of music, all of it braided (or rather stuck) together.

In 2024 they released their debut album «Ґрунт» (Grunt, “Soil”), singled out by Ukraine’s leading music media. The record immediately established them as one of the most interesting new live acts — mystical, coherent and deeply atmospheric — a reputation they went on to confirm on the stages of the «Леся Квартиринка» (Lesia Kvartyrynka) and «Брудний Пес» (Brudnyi Pes) festivals.

In October 2025 Zlypni performed at BUSH, a leading showcase festival in Budapest, and in December played their first headline show at Mezzanine. A dimension of their work all its own: live scores performed to the silent film «Хліб» (Khlib, “Bread”, 1930).

ba.latskii (балацький) — a Ukrainian indie-pop band made up of Юрій Балацький (Yurii Balatskyi), Роман Краснобай (Roman Krasnobai), Назар Ніколайчук (Nazar Nikolaichuk) and Артур Кожевніков (Artur Kozhevnikov). The name itself comes from the stressed “ba” in Roman’s surname and the “latskii” in Yurii’s — the two who form the band’s core. They have been playing together for over 12 years, and only recently started building a shared project.

In three years the band released 8 singles, and in 2023 their first full-length album.
Even through a relative lull, their monthly streaming figures never drop below 60,000.

Their best-known songs «Ти так мало говориш» (Ty tak malo hovorysh, “You Say So Little”) and «Ти сонце я сніг» (Ty sontse ya snih, “You Are the Sun, I Am the Snow”) are familiar to just about every indie-pop fan. Every new release brings them thousands of new listeners, radio rotation and invitations from indie festivals and venues.
As of 2024 the total views of their work on YouTube have passed 8 million.
And every new show is not only warmer and deeper, but genuinely polished and professional.

The band was founded by Антон Шитель (Anton Sheetel), formerly of MYOPIA and The Cancel Band. His keys and his straining vocal are the band’s constants. A small orchestra builds the weight of the sound: keys, bass, drums and cello. 

The noir atmosphere draws on classic trip-hop, jazz and grunge. Shows are often built out with visual or theatrical performance. From the first minute to the last the band holds the room’s attention, and even those who know the material well will catch new instrumental parts and dramatic turns. 

Frontman Anton Sheetel has recently started experimenting with electronic music, releasing the EP «FALL» and the singles «Невеселий» (Neveselyi, “Cheerless”) and «Кумедний» (Kumednyi, “Funny”). He also performs periodically as a piano acoustic act — a flexible programme that suits events of very different formats.

The solo project of Стас Іващенко (Stas Ivashchenko) – drummer of DOK and Вагоновожаті (Vahonovozhati) (ВГНВЖ), in which he opens up as an electronic musician. 

In 2020 Stas released his debut EP «Signals», which made the year-end lists of many Ukrainian outlets. From 2021 he began performing live (Brave! Factory, GogolFest. Black Factory, festivals in Germany and Estonia). His live shows bring together the raw energy of live drums and electronic texture. His most recent release, ЕР/2, came out in June 2022 on «Salon Imaginalis», the label of the artist Koloah. 

His project is a genuinely new breath in electronic music. Remarkable live drumming, expression and a wild vividness of sound set against electro and breakbeat add up to an entirely new sonic language. It is that symbiosis of the electronic and the live that creates the experience, the pressure and the sound of the show.

The solo project of composer and pianist Євгеній Дубовик (Yevhenii Dubovyk), in which he brings together neo-soul, jazz, fusion and elements of electronic and classical music. A fresh perspective, bold choices and a conceptual approach run through every single he has released: «Motion», «Mr. Tritone», «Resistance», «Hope». 

You have certainly heard his elegant piano parts at shows and on records by Стас Корольов (Stas Koroliov), Ziferblat, Jamala, Обійми Дощу (Obiimy Doshchu), Антон Слєпаков (Anton Sliepakov), Дно (Dno) and other notable figures on the Ukrainian scene.

Live, Yevhenii Dubovyk performs as part of a quartet with drummer Іван Корнієнко (Ivan Korniienko), bassist Стас Дяченко (Stas Diachenko) and Кирило Черкашин (Kyrylo Cherkashyn) on saxophone. When they play, you can hear not only the instruments sounding, but the space around them.

Надя Печуркіна (Nadia Pechurkina), otherwise known as ін8ерсія (in8ersiia, ex. sucilna_nevdacha.exe), gave the indie scene a proper shake in 2022 with the songs «Ніколи» (Nikoly, “Never”) and «Не тримайся» (Ne trymaisia, “Don’t Hold On”), carrying naive Gen Z poetry in the arms of a bright sound and a light, easy voice.

Her inner arguments and her thinking about love and the meaning of existence found an audience among people who like to zone out to Minecraft let’s-plays or a disco lamp in a dark room, pushing them to work through their own painful experience and move on.

In 2023 Nadia released «Першу зірку на небі» (Pershu zirku na nebi, “The First Star in the Sky”), carrying on with honest love stories set between apathetic episodes.

Her shows feel like a warm house gig in the company of outsiders, where the real beauty of ordinary human life sounds out in the quiet of a room full of people.

A theatrical blues-punk project founded in 2022. Its roots run back to the village of Volodarske in the Donetsk region. It was there, working solo, that vocalist and guitarist Ілля Мірошник (Illia Miroshnyk) shaped the concept of the mini-album «Donbass blues». The rest of the musicians joined him later, and together they built a combination of industrially hard punk forms and sensual blues.

The debut album was warmly received and made it into rotation on Ukrainian radio.

The band are on friendly terms with the Леся Квартиринка (Lesia Kvartyrynka) festival, the КосмосТабір (KosmosTabir) organisation and the «ЖNИВА (ZHNYVA)» bar. Together they see their mission as supporting the growth of independent indie art and of local culture

headachee — a young dream/trip-pop band from Kyiv, active since 2021. 

Their songs catch on fast: videos on TikTok set to the track «мавпа» (mavpa, “monkey”) pull in hundreds of thousands of views. In early 2024 the band put out their debut studio album «Шукаючи колір» (Shukaiuchy kolir, “Looking for Colour”), reaching for a multi-genre record and successfully folding together shoegaze, surf rock, dream pop and even blues rock

The band has already played a great many of Kyiv’s youth gatherings, from Пожежа (Pozhezha) to Не.Культурні (Ne.Kulturni).

Лелека і Папороть (Leleka i Paporot) — a band from Ternopil drawn to psychedelic textures, blending synth-pop, dream pop, indie and funk.

The band formed in 2023 after they began working with Роман Божко (Roman Bozhko) — founder of Echo Gardens and co-founder of Tik Tu — who handles sound production and plays drums in the band. In 2024 they released their debut EP, «Реальність недійсна» (Realnist nediisna, “Reality Is Void”), nominated for a MEGOGO Music Awards in the Mini-Album of the Year category.

The music of Leleka i Paporot is a waking dream, one in which the hidden self steps out through the walls of body and mind and starts to exist in a world of spirits, optical phenomena, emotion, feeling, flight in sleep and awake, light and nature. To sink into that world, watch the live video of several of their tracks on the Blue Lizard channel.

Гурт Дно — гурт, який перетворив «жизу» на окремий музичний жанр. 

Концерти Дно — це відчуття, ніби випадково потрапив на репетицію компанії друзів, які грають на рівні великої сцени. Тут багато імпровізації, музиканти постійно міняються інструментами просто під час сету, жартують один з одного, спілкуються із залом і не бояться пауз між піснями. Живі перестановки, зміни ролей між учасниками та абсолютна невимушеність роблять кожен виступ унікальним.

Найпопулярніший трек «не цейво сам себе» уже зібрав понад мільйон прослуховувань на Spotify, а в червні 2026 року гурт зіграв свій перший сольний концерт у Caribbean Club.

Святослав Вакарчук колись сказав про них: «Дно — це не погано, це — інше». Що саме він мав на увазі ми не знаємо, але опис хороший.

Either the alter or the ego of Євген Гордєєв (Yevhen Hordieiev). 

Aching confessions of a provincial outsider. A musical hotchpotch not unlike a wedding held in a railway-station canteen for the sick at heart — which is to say, for absolutely everyone.