Brave! Factory Festival takeover: listen to the shifting sounds of Alex Savage

On Wednesday 23 August, a couple thousand people are expected to descend on Kiev’s Metrobud building for the very first edition of Brave! Factory Festival, a two-day festival running over Ukraine’s Independence Day.

More than 50 international artists are scheduled to play over the inaugural music event, including Detroit pioneers Robert Hood and Octave One, experimentalists Laurel Halo and Yves Tumor, Chicago-house hero Derrick Carter, Swedish minimalist producer The Field, and more. While you’re probably already familiar with the work of Ukrainian artists like DJ Nastia and Stanislav Tolkachev, the festival also has many more homegrown underground artists on the bill. During this week we’ll be spotlighting the must-see local artists as picked by the festival organisers, the crew behind Kiev club Closer.

The first is none other than Alex Savage.

Also known as Prinx Hashime, Alex Savage is a firmly-established figure in the Ukrainian underground electronic music scene. Not only a resident of Kiev dance mecca Closer, he is frequently invited to take part in music events in Kiev and Moscow. Together with his friend and fellow Closer resident Lobanov K, he founded the label Progressive Future in 2016. Savage’s music is a combination of ambient sound and hip-hop beats, with a dark edge. Savage has a penchant for old school metal, hardcore and punk rock, and these elements of punk rock are combined with techno, lending the gloomy sound a new paradigm.

At Brave! Factory Festival, Savage will share the stage with Anna Haleta, dubbed “the Techno Queen of Tel Aviv”. Born in Ukraine, Haleta moved to Jerusalem in 1995, where in 2002 she organized her first rave and a year later founded club night series and record label Pacotek.

Brave! Factory Festival will take place from 23 — 24 August 2017 at Metrobud factory in Kiev. Tickets are available for purchase here.