Raves haven't been underground in America for well over two decades, and the commercialization and coopting of rave culture has turned those little warehouse parties into full blown stadium festival fare.
But early raves were part protest, part dance party and usually illegal in some way, and this civil unrest techno disco vibe brought hope to people who were dealing with conflicts threatening to break them down.
Which is why underground raves are back in a big way in Ukraine, as seen in this i-D video:
The 2014 revolution brought Kiev nightlife to a complete standstill. As protests turned into riots, and government security forces opened fire on protestors, the country fell into crisis. But out of the ashes of revolution has risen a new generation. Slava Lepsheev, who’d lost his job because of the financial crisis triggered by the war, had had enough, and started Cxema, a raw, hard and hypnotic techno rave that he took to whatever semi-legal venue he could set a soundsystem up in. So together with Slava, and the city’s brightest young lights, we followed young Kiev as they prepared for a night at Cxema, from building the venue to watching the sunrise break.