When whispers spread across Kyiv that the Closer crew was planning this year’s Brave! Factory Festival outside of their usual venue – the Closer club – anticipation grew. For the first time since 2021, they were bringing the event to a completely new location. With Metrobud Factory, the previous home from 2017 to 2021, off the table, the crew chose the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Film Studio.
The location has some rave history – I used to work there on a few Cxema raves in 2018 (yes, that long ago), but the scale was different this time. The Closer crew went busy on many more locations, creating one more ecosystem to remember. Pavillion, Avtotzeh, and Auditoria were new ones, and the Garden concept transitioned from Closer’s Garden (it seems that almost every big event in Ukraine now has a chill/downtempo stage, interesting). The main one (for us at Trommel) – Depo, was saved from all previous Brave!s (this edition of this dancefloor was probably the best one, later, I’ll tell you why).
Skipping Auditoria — a cinema-meets-concert space that didn’t quite match the Trommel music vibe. I started my festival journey on Saturday at Avtotzeh, where PRZ delivered an energetic live, followed by Monotronique, who unleashed a monstrous dose of bass. Meanwhile, at Pavillion, Alex Savage was “tearing the f*cking club up” as usual, and the newest addition to the roster of Closer’s residents Shults.Sashaa treated us to an unusually diverse techno set (“I can do this once a year, I guess”).
Finally, Depo. Spencer Parker, one of the festival’s top headliners, delivered a soulful yet high-energy mix of house, perfect for the dancefloor tucked in the shadows of the trees, with an old fountain still holding water to help us survive the August heat BIG TIME. By the way, the DJ was standing in the center of the venue, that helped to avoid huge crowds – another win for Depo.
Igor Glushko mellowed dancers a little (because, I think, you can’t go any faster than Spencer Parker did that evening) with his selection of deep, but still vibing house. One moment, however, gave people goosebumps – during his set, the nearest air raid siren went off, perfectly matching the rhythm of the track. If I remember correctly, the rocket was intercepted before reaching the Kyiv region at that time, but with these things, you never know. It looked like this (in the video below you can hear the end of the usual announcement during/after the sirens):
And then there was the Garden – the most, well, isolated dancefloor at the venue, dedicated to more chilled-out vibes. That evening, it was taken over by the perfect duo of Rustam and Domnitsa. The DJs were literally hidden in the trees, but you didn’t need to see them to enjoy the music, like the tracks from Soichi Terada, for example. Sunday at the Garden kicked off with another dynamic duo, Haathi, and Nota Yanvarska from the THP crew, who surprised everyone at one moment by dropping some dubstep into their otherwise laid-back set. Later, Gapon took over and even played “Footcrab” by Addison Groove at 33rpm during his set.
Aside from the Garden, Sunday was pretty much all about Depo. That said, there were two standout highlights from the other stages: the legendary techno b2b set by Recid and Roman K at the Pavilion, and the bizarre yet completely captivating performance by Heith from PAN at Avtotzeh. Heith wasn’t originally planned for my list, but after hearing countless “you-have-to-check-this” recommendations on Sunday, I just couldn’t miss it.
But let’s go to Depo. The day (for me) started with Mari.te. As I was later told by one of the Closer residents: “It felt like she had been preparing for that set for, like, five years.”. It was absolutely brilliant—the music, which spanned all types of house, the perfect-sized crowd, and the vibe of the early day (you’ve just had breakfast, and you’re ready to dance all day long). It was a “wow” moment. Totally expected, in other hands, but still nice.
After Mari.te, Bogdan Zaiets, and Elijah took over with their live performance, and it was one of the best house sets I’ve heard in a long time. Top-notch modern music delivered flawlessly.
We had an inside joke: “No matter who’s in the lineup, Borys will always have the best set.” And guess what? He did it again. In his classic signature style—almost without any bangers—but it was impossible to step away to the toilet, food court, or bar, or even blink or chat with friends because the chance of missing something incredible was huge. As usual with Borys, the crowd had the highest concentration of DJs, all eager to hear what he had in the bag.
The closing set was by Reade Truth. He was unexpectedly brought to Lviv in 2023, and I can easily say it was one of the best house sets in my city last year. In 2024, he got the crowd he deserved—the dancefloor was packed. His fascinating selection swung between gothic dark techno-house (think Quest and Cristian AB) and some 2007-style minimal, often alternating between the two. It worked perfectly, and the crowd loved it—except for one track that was made in Russia, not a good move to play something like that in Kyiv nowadays. Though I doubt it was done intentionally.
The festival ended exactly on schedule due to the curfew. Some of the dancers and DJs headed to catch their trains back to their cities, while others went to bed, only to wake up to one of the biggest rocket and drone attacks on Kyiv the following morning. It’s something you never truly get used to, even after more than 900 days of the full-scale invasion.
Despite it all, the long aftertaste of Brave! Factory Festival 2024 is positive. While the lineup still didn’t reach the levels we were used to before 2021, the festival’s program was engaging enough to keep you entertained for the full two days. A new location has been unlocked, and though it’s too early to plan anything for 2025, we can already imagine some enhancements for the venue. The Closer crew just love to build something extra, we all knew that.
I won’t just leave you with the texts from the foreign guests this time. Instead, I’ll let you review all their reflections, including the photos and videos they brought from Kyiv. Here’s some from Mari.te, Reade Truth, PRZ, VSK, and Spencer Parker.
And see yall in Kyiv next year. I hope.
More information on Brave! Factory Festival
Facebook | Resident Advisor | Instagram | Telegram
This article was written in Ukraine. Ukraine is in the middle of the war with Russia right now. Would be great if you could donate to the biggest Ukrainian volunteer fund here. Also, you can pick any music initiative, that is also trying to help from our list here. We’ll be stronger together.
