Legend has it that the electrons in OMD's ‘Electricity’ began to dance in young Ian Richard Devaney’s father’s car and it was love:  it made no sense to have a band without a keyboard player who loved synth-pop as much as he did. So Devaney left The Static Jacks, the rock band he was singing and playing guitar in at the time, and, together with bassist Michael Sue-Poi, set out to find someone who could bring a retro-futuristic sheen to a keyboard. Aidan Noell joined them, and voilà, Nation of Language was born in 2016.

Since then, the New York trio's techno-pop has not stopped moving forward, paradoxically, looking backwards: Tubeway Army, New Order, Ultravox and, of course, OMD are present in Nation of Language's music as a reminder of a life they never lived, but which they are now recreating from a contemporary perspective.