Serge Jazzmate is a Kyiv DJ, a resident of the club ∄ and one of the figures the Ukrainian electronic scene rests on. He rarely talks about himself, so most of what is known he told just once — in a long interview in 2025.
The music that shaped him reached him at school, around 1999–2000: downtempo and trip hop — Kruder & Dorfmeister, Thievery Corporation, Massive Attack, Portishead — and, in parallel, techno: Richie Hawtin, Jeff Mills, Basic Channel. In the Kyiv of those years such records were almost impossible to get, and the CDs were brought in by friends travelling abroad. Serge copied them, gave them away and had the sleeves scanned at the only colour copy shop in town — he gathered around five thousand discs, and about a thousand are still with him.
He began collecting vinyl at about fifteen, before he had a turntable: he simply kept the records and waited. He bought his first set-up — two Technics decks and a Pioneer mixer — in 2005 with the first money he earned, and from then on every after-party moved to his flat. His official debut came in 2007 at Kyiv’s Babay Bar, where he was invited by Katro Zauber; he played disco-funk — much the same thing he plays today.
In February 2009 the club Xlib hosted the first LOW party — the series that became his main contribution to the Kyiv scene. The city was playing techno, electro and minimal at the time, with house and disco all but absent: LOW took that empty niche and, over the years, raised an audience of its own. Mountain of One, Bill Brewster, Prins Thomas, Ray Mang, Rune Lindbæk, Tako, later John Talabot, Andrew Weatherall, Axel Boman, Young Marco, Eric Duncan and Gerd Janson all came through it. In the early years most of them slept on Serge’s sofa. After Xlib closed, the parties moved to Closer, and the sound shifted from balearic and disco towards clubbier house.
A chapter of its own is Agharti in Odesa, where from 2014–2015 he drove down with bags of records and played with friends from dawn until evening. His longest set happened there — eleven hours.
In February 2021 he was invited to the club on Kyrylivska for the first time. The place was playing fast techno; Serge brought house and disco at 118 BPM — and played six hours instead of the planned two. That began a run which, twenty-nine sets later, ended in an official residency at ∄ in the spring of 2024. His working range is 122–128 BPM; anything above 140 he refuses to play.
Serge is a regular at Strichka, Brave! Factory and Rythm Buro, has played in Berlin and New York (including the Le Bain rooftop) and recorded mixes for 20ft Radio and The Lot Radio. Still, he considers the Ukrainian crowd the best.
He does not like playing back to back and rarely agrees — his best understanding has been with Pavlo Plastikk, Alinka, Roman K and Rustam.