Catch the activist quartet spreading Ukrainian culture while protesting Russia’s war. And oh yeah, their music is just spectacular: “like nothing I’ve ever heard, with strands of everything I’ve ever heard,” said Bob Boilen, of the NPR Tiny Desk Concert series.

Back in 2004, the band was conceived as an avant garde theater piece at the Kyiv Center of Contemporary Art. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked a new energy for both the band’s anti-Putin message and “ethno-chaos” sound, combining elements of cabaret, jazz, rock, and hip-hop, with arrangements featuring accordion, piano, cello, and inventive percussion and vocal techniques. Nina Garenetska’s treble-y cello is often the leading line, which floats between bowed melodies and plucked baselines, with the hard edge you might find in a Violent Femmes or Beck song. The resulting music is deep and textural, while always landing on a catchy groove, and never straying too far into abstraction.

DakhaBrakha’s name (“give-take” in old Ukrainian), refers to its collage of folk songs and music from around the globe, a sound the band calls transnational with Ukrainian roots. The core of the group’s ambition is to share the rich culture of its country while countering Russian propaganda messages that Ukraine doesn’t independently exist. They hope to “open up the potential of Ukrainian melodies and to bring them to the hearts and consciousness of the younger generation in Ukraine and the rest of the world.”

Keep your eye out for the band’s towering, lamb’s wool hats and Garenetska’s very punk-rock-painted cello.