Would you have guessed that the creators of this brittle, fluttering, grooving synth pop come from Kiev? Probably not. No shame—we didn’t, either. But when it comes down to it, what do we and you actually know about the music scene in the Ukrainian capital anyway? Very little! It’s high time to close these knowledge gaps and overcome geographic boundaries in the pop cultural endeavor. Nasantashi Primary School are Vlad, Lucy, and Mykhaylo. With the help of analogue synthesizers and drum machines, minimalist melodies and dry, mostly-spoken texts, the trio stumbles through meticulously trenchant pop hits, spanning an arc from Berlin in the 70s to New York in the 80s to London in the 90s and—attention, plot twist—back to New York in the noughties. Despite all that, the second song on the troika’s first release is called “Push Past Yesterday”—in other words, future is being created. Krautrock, new wave, no wave, and rave combine powers in carefully dissected rhythmic bodies, and, in becoming the music of now, further defeat guesses at geographical origins. And apropos location: the band’s first, highly praiseworthy EP was mixed by the Berlin producer Tadklimp, whose expertise has already served Torstrassen alumni such as Fenster, Kala Brisella, and Jason & Theodor.

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