Was a pleasure to be on support again to warm things up for Cristoph's Denver return. Enjoy the journey. #properPROG

#properPROG - KSTEELE Live @ IRL UNDERGROUND (Support for Cristoph) [OCTOBER 2021]

Andreas was born here in June on the beautiful planet Earth in a magnificent solar system. He is very grateful for this, and since then he has enjoyed all kinds of lively music, which plays an important role in his life. He thanks all artists and music lovers for allowing him to continue to experience his life with all its ups and downs ;-)

Music is a special kind of safe in which you can give free rein to your boundless creativity to continue to record positive events in life and process less positive ones. In this sense, time does not stand still, but music remains timeless....🎶💜🎶

With dance music roots that stem from a love for 2000s trance and techno, Texas-born Andrew Pinkowitz turns lifelong curiosity into creative opportunity by diving beyond the static noise of daily life into the deeper textures of organic house. Pinkowitz’s productions blend the ethereal and the melodic, creating dynamic dancefloor explorations of darkness and light. Digital life in the pandemic age brought about his first release, a collaboration with Mexico’s Ricardo Angeles released on Sound Avenue in 2022. That track, “Hidden Pathway,” was followed by entries on Nordic Voyage, Keyfound, 3rd Avenue, Amulanga, and The Purr. His work has received support from the likes of Hernan Cattaneo, Eli Nissan, Fernando Ferreyra, Death on the Balcony, and artists around the globe.

Closer to home, Pinkowitz is a collaborative leader in the lush landscapes of Colorado’s rising melodic house scene as a member of the Sky Terrace Collective. On the decks of Denver’s Club Vinyl, Mockingbird, and The Church, he fashions discourse from downbeats, combining danceable favorites with uncommon treasures and samplings of works-in-development. Pinkowitz’s affinity with audiences forms compass points in sonic journeys that have led to supporting Lee Burridge and Durante - which guide his path toward innovation and evolution in the years to come.

Deep/Organic House Producer and DJ
Denver, Colorado, USA

Resident at Sky Terrace — @skyterrace

Releases on:
 Amulanga — @amulangamusic
 Sound Avenue — @soundavenue
 WTSE Eclipse — @wheretheshadowends
 3rd Avenue — @3rdavenue
 Nordic Voyage — @nordicvoyage
 Keyfound — @keyfound-kfr
 Podoba — @podobamusic
 The Purr — @thepurrmusic
 Be Adult — @beadultmusic
 Anoka — @anokamusiclabel
 Equilibrio — @equilibrio_records
 Stellar Fountain — @stellar-fountain-records
 Not by Rituals — @notbyrituals
 Empty World — @emptyworldmusic
 Massive Harmony — @massiveharmony
 Arcedian — @arcedian
 LIL Dream — @lessonsinlive
 Daydreamers — @daydreamerslabel
 Future Avenue — @futureavenuelabel
 Quite Right Records — @quiterightrecords
 Singularity Records — @singularityrecordsbr

Booking: pinkowitzmusic [at] gmail.com

ZenLily is a vocalist, multi instrumentalist, electronic music producer/composer and DJ, weaving a unique blend of ethereal vocals with lush progressive house vibes. She finds her inspiration through listening to the subtle whispers of nature’s rhythms, and a deep internal listening to her own rhythms. 

Music has taken her on many journeys, from her home town of Boulder, Colorado, where she studied violin and voice as a child, to Vienna Austria, where she studied opera vocal performance, to New York city where she sang as a professional opera singer, and back to Denver where she now performs locally, and beyond. 

She is known for her iconic live performances, where she layers her cinematic vocals over the top of the beats she spins, creating a mesmerizing journey through sonic textures and soundscapes. 

She released her debut 3 track EP on Amber Long’s Canadian imprint, Modern Agenda in 2020, and has had several follow up releases on that label. She has also released on Colorado’s own Journey Deep, and Ibiza’s 64k, and newly on Addictive Sounds based out of Ukraine. Her single with Eli Spiral will debut on Deepersense out of Poland in October. 

ZenLily’s, ethereal, deep, yet dark sound has led her to open for some music giants such as Qrion, Simon Doty, and Spencer Brown of Anjuna Deep, as well Death on the Balcony of All Day I Dream. She is excited to make her European debut in Amsterdam in October, playing alongside Juliane Wolfe, Brain Wolf Ear, and Dabeat. 

To her, music is magic, the glue that holds us together in times of darkness, that uplifts, and heals us. It is her hope that her music can be experienced as an activation to return to primal states of consciousness in harmony with each other, and the earth.

Zen Katana

Although music has always been an inspirational outlet for his creativity, Zen Katana played his first live show just outside of Detroit in 2006.  Starting out in the uplifting trance scene, he naturally moved through a variety of electronic genres to serve as the soundtrack of life’s progression over the years.  His travels took him to the beautiful mountains of Asheville, NC in 2011 where he now resides amongst some of the finest artistic minds the world has to offer. Zen’s most recent sound is one of Deep Organic and Progressive House Music tied in with an endless number of other genres.  You can catch his weekly mix of uplifting and healing vibes on the Sonic Therapy Radio Show.

Visceral, raw, deep, dirty, dark, driving, techno 🖤

It’s not progressive if it doesn’t push music forward: this is the position held by KSTEELE. Be it the next track in his mix or his ambitions out on the horizon, the Denver DJ always keeps it real and keeps it moving.

KSTEELE is the forerunner of #properPROG — less a genre and more a philosophy of sonic exploration. His refusal to conform has yielded an unpredictable style that holds captive house, techno and trance fans alike in rooms like Temple Denver, Bar Standard, Club Vinyl, and Meow Wolf Denver. Only a few short years into his electronic music career, he’s beginning to rapidly accelerate.

It’s a rare sort of confidence that allows KSTEELE to rise above the tribalism that plagues modern dance music. It only makes sense, though, as he’s no stranger to going against the grain.

Born Kalib Steele in Colorado Springs, he first fell in love with trance at boarding school when he found “For An Angel” by Paul van Dyk on a friend’s iPod Nano. He played the track on repeat every day. Even without access to a community who shared his newfound passion, he then explored much of the electronic music landscape on his own before graduating high school.

2013 marked a turning point as Steele touched down in Denver and immediately got involved with Global Dance, the city’s largest electronic music event brand. Doors opened to a world even bigger than the one he envisioned when he heard the otherworldly melodies of his formative influences. He started out as a promoter and quickly worked his way up to A&R.

It wasn’t until much later that Steele entertained the idea of performing himself. By 2017 he was constantly dazzling established artists in the trance-progressive arena with his knowledge of cutting-edge tracks on obscure labels. After enough respected tastemakers pushed him to take up DJing, he finally made his way to the other side of the decks.

KSTEELE debuted at Denver club Bar Standard in December of 2019. He was billed as the opener, but by the time his set ended he had a crowd that any local DJ would envy. More importantly, he demonstrated to all the right people in the city that his passion for music had manifested as a talent for music curation.

The years since have been kind to KSTEELE. His résumé now includes gigs at Club Vinyl, Larimer Lounge, Knew Concious, Temple Denver, Your Mom's House, Milk Bar, Global Dance Festival, X BAR, Meow Wolf Denver, Disco Pussy Las Vegas and both the Denver and Las Vegas iterations of Techno Taco Tuesday. 
He has played support for such well-known artists as Tinlicker, Jody Wisternoff, Simon Doty, Cristoph, Matt Lange, Charles D, John Monkman, Hannes Bieger, Grum, Moon Boots, Shay DeCastro, Qrion, CRi, Estiva and Matt Fax. KSTEELE also boasts strong ties with Denver promoter TheHundred Presents, Knew Conscious, and techno/progressive label JourneyDeep Records.

KSTEELE has covered this much ground in such a short period of time because he’s building something bigger than himself. It’s not lost on him that he’s among a small handful of Black artists active in the trance-progressive range of the electronic music spectrum. He wants his success to lead the way for others in his shoes who might not otherwise see a place for themselves in this community.

At the same time, KSTEELE attests that proper progressive is not a creative range at all. He believes that every piece of music is unique in itself, and whatever meanings we give to the words that become genres will never measure up to the sounds themselves. His drive to unearth a diverse array of forward-thinking gems is what makes his music progressive. His seamless mixing, stage presence, and immediate connection with the audience is what makes it unquestionably proper.

Listen closely enough to the moments that make up a KSTEELE set and you can hear the omen of a not-so-distant future. One thing is for sure: There’s no telling where the #properPROG movement will take him next.