When it comes to sup­port­ing the Ukrain­ian peo­ple in their bat­tle against the Russ­ian inva­sion, it helps when an oppor­tu­ni­ty match­es our own inter­est. On this site that means direct­ly fund­ing the artists of Ukraine if pos­si­ble. For­tu­nate­ly, this new video from YouTube cre­ator Band­splain­ing will point you in the direc­tion of 18 Ukrain­ian under­ground bands that deserve a lis­ten and your mon­ey (if so choose).

While his chan­nel is devot­ed to “Weird sto­ries and less­er-known gen­res that don’t get cov­ered by Pitch­fork,” Band­splain­ing doesn’t usu­al­ly go in for cur­rent events, but as he explains, he is inter­est­ed in music his­to­ry, and bands that have con­tin­ued to cre­ate under extreme and dan­ger­ous con­di­tions.

“Music scenes that exist­ed six weeks ago are now at risk of van­ish­ing com­plete­ly,” he says. The list is com­plete­ly sub­jec­tive, and only hints at the Ukrain­ian music scene. Each major city has its clubs, and its fans, and its own home­grown labels. The sad­ness of watch­ing the video is won­der­ing what might have been bombed out of exis­tence.

I sus­pect none of the bands or musi­cians will be well known to most read­ers, though DakhaBrakha might be—they per­formed an excel­lent set for NPR’s Tiny Desk Con­cert series.

Includ­ing a band well-known enough for pub­lic radio might not be that “under­ground” but Band­splain­ing real­ly means musi­cians who don’t sound main­stream.

Ukraine has its own par­tic­u­lar psych/metal sound, exem­pli­fied here by Shi­va the Destruc­tor, La Hor­sa Bian­ca, Stone Jesus, and Soma­li Yacht Club. Lviv’s Sher­pa the Tiger play mod­ern Krautrock grooves. For elec­tron­i­ca it has the cold­wave of Kurs Valüt, Voy­age Future’s ambi­ent music, and the low-fi hip-hop of Provod.

There’s also old­er music his­to­ry dug up here—the tale of Valenti­na Gon­charo­va, the clas­si­cal­ly trained vio­lin­ist who turned to free jazz and musique con­crete, or pianist Ihort Tsym­brovsky, whose 1995 pri­vate cas­sette release is now con­sid­ered way ahead of its time.

Band­splain­ing checks in with some of these bands to see their cur­rent fates. Some have moved, some are fight­ing, sav­ing refugees, and doing what they can. His gen­uine inter­est in their lives makes this video more than just a list­si­cle.

Most of this music is avail­able through Band­camp, which does mean a major­i­ty of the mon­ey is going back to the musi­cians them­selves. And any YouTube rev­enue from the video will go back to the bands too, Band­splain­ing says, or Ukrain­ian char­i­ties.

Last­ly, the YouTube com­ments for the video con­tains hun­dreds more rec­om­men­da­tions from fans of Ukrain­ian music. Band­splain­ing has opened the flood­gates.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

How Ukraine’s Works of Art Are Being Saved in Wartime–Using the Lessons of World War II

Russ­ian Inva­sion of Ukraine Teach-Out: A Free Course from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan

Pink Floyd Releas­es Its First New Song in 28 Years to Help Sup­port Ukraine

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his films here.

When Prince passed away, many a non-Prince fan sud­den­ly found out that the man was not only a bril­liant song­writer, singer, dancer, gui­tarist, pianist, styl­ist, and super­star, but that he was also a vir­tu­al one-man band in the stu­dio, able to play almost any instru­ment, in exact­ly the way he want­ed it played. Prince fans knew this, as do fans of the musi­cian who made Songs in the Key of Life — or what Prince called the great­est album ever record­ed. And if Prince were here, he would agree:  Ste­vie Won­der deserves more appre­ci­a­tion for his mul­ti-musi­cian­ship while he’s still with us.

Yes, of course, we know him for his “stag­ger­ing song­writ­ing and vocal skills,” writes PC Muñoz at Drum! mag­a­zine, for his “prowess as a for­mi­da­ble, inven­tive key­boardist (and pop music syn­the­siz­er pio­neer)” and “his vir­tu­oso-lev­el skills on har­mon­i­ca.”

But do we know Ste­vie Won­der as a drum­mer? Well, “news­flash for those who did­n’t know,” Muñoz announces: “Ste­vie Won­der also hap­pens to be one badass drum­mer.” (In fact, his very first gig, at 8 years old, was on the drums.) Not that he hasn’t received his just due from fel­low musi­cians, far from it.

Eric Clap­ton called Won­der “the great­est drum­mer of our time” in 1974 — “hefty praise” (and maybe a bit of a swipe), wrote music jour­nal­ist Eric San­dler, “com­ing from a man who played with Gin­ger Bak­er.” See a demon­stra­tion of Won­der’s for­mi­da­ble feel and groove behind the kit in the drum solo at the top of the post. But, of course, you’ve already heard his drum­ming — all, or most, of your life per­haps — on his albums, includ­ing most every track on Talk­ing Book, Songs in the Key of Life, and Innervi­sions — songs like “Super­sti­tion,” “High­er Ground,” “Liv­ing for the City” … all Ste­vie.

“I grew up prac­tic­ing to Ste­vie Wonder’s music,” drum­mer Eric Carnes tells Muñoz, “but I actu­al­ly didn’t know he was often the drum­mer on his own stuff. Until I was in my twen­ties.” Carnes goes on to describe the hall­marks of Won­der’s style: “very relaxed – not so crisp and not so metro­nom­ic. He’s using dif­fer­ent parts of the stick at dif­fer­ent times, and his hi-hat parts change through­out the song. A lot of times, each cho­rus in a giv­en song is played slight­ly dif­fer­ent­ly, too. He esca­lates a song over a long peri­od of time, real­ly grow­ing the whole piece, instead of top­ping out ear­ly; it gives the music some­where to go.”

Bill Janovitz of the band Buf­fa­lo Tom — in a very thor­ough paean to Songs in the Key of Life – points to the “innate sense of groove in his drum­ming.… There is a musi­cal inven­tive­ness that might stem from being a well-round­ed mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist, as opposed to some­one who strict­ly defines them­selves as a drum­mer.”

In his appre­ci­a­tion of Won­der’s drum­ming at Slate, Seth Steven­son also high­lights Won­der’s “expres­sive­ness.… No two mea­sures sound the same.” He offers a mini best-of roundup of Won­der’s record­ed drum­ming moments:

My favorite Won­der drum track comes on ‘Too High,’ the first song on Innervi­sions. Sub­tle snare rolls, sud­den tom-tom tum­bles, jazzy ride-cym­bal swings – they’re all scrump­tious and all in the greater ser­vice of the song. This is not the approach of a hired drum­mer attempt­ing to carve out his own ter­rain. It’s the work of a mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist com­pos­er who fits his vision for each part into an inter­lock­ing whole.

Steven­son and Janovitz speak to a thread in so many dis­cus­sions of “vir­tu­oso” musi­cians: com­posers who are also musi­cal prodi­gies have ways of play­ing instru­ments in an idiom only they can under­stand. One imag­ines that if we had record­ings of Mozart or Bach – both prodi­gious mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ists from very young ages – we would hear clas­si­cal instru­ments played in ways we’ve nev­er heard them played before. The mag­ic of record­ing — and Ste­vie Won­der’s record­ings espe­cial­ly — means we can hear the drums on his songs exact­ly as he heard, and played, them, and exact­ly as he want­ed them played.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Catch Ste­vie Won­der, Ages 12–16, in His Ear­li­est TV Per­for­mances

Decon­struct­ing Ste­vie Wonder’s Ode to Jazz and His Hero Duke Elling­ton: A Great Break­down of “Sir Duke”

See Ste­vie Won­der Play “Super­sti­tion” and Ban­ter with Grover on Sesame Street in 1973

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness