biography
sneaki is a Chicago-based electronic music project with a history that begins in 1999 and a catalog that has spent most of its life out of public circulation. The project is classically and jazz-trained at its foundation, and the work reflects that formation: harmonic depth, structural intentionality, a sense of drama that operates beneath whatever surface genre the track is wearing at the time.
The earliest recordings were produced under the alias Kindjal before the sneaki name solidified in the early 2000s. What followed was a run of EPs and session recordings spanning multiple genres such as trance, techno, jungle, house, and early tech-trance. These releases circulated in limited regional contexts but were never formally distributed. The Tremont Sessions (2006), Fading Memories (2000), Eclipse (2001): these are releases that exist, that were made with full seriousness, and that most listeners have never encountered. The archive is substantial. It is only beginning to surface.
A period of absence followed. Less “retirement,” and more of a withdrawal from public output while the work continued in private. The late 2010s saw a return to production that was, at first, more about getting back to form than producing formal releases. The Remix EP (2021), which collected remix work spanning 2005 to 2021, served as a quiet reentry point.
The streaming era began in earnest with Cork in January 2023. sneaki has described Cork as the first track produced with enough confidence to publish — a statement worth sitting with given the 20-plus years of work that preceded it. What it marked was not a beginning but a threshold: the moment the project decided to be findable.
The singles that followed each carry the project’s characteristic approach: genre as a starting point, not a destination. Trance structures that open into progressive spaces. Tech-trance energy that resolves somewhere unexpected. The influences are present: BT. Oakenfold. LTJ Bukem. J. Dilla. Kanye. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. — Even rock acts like The Cure and Pearl Jam. But the influences are always metabolized, never worn. The work sounds like sneaki.
The current singles are building toward a debut full-length. The form is intentional: each single complete in itself, the larger work accumulating around it. Simultaneously, the archive is being documented and prepared for its own proper presentation. 25 years of finished work that has never had a home deserves one.
sneaki has not performed live for many years. The current project is production-focused, Chicago-rooted, and working at its own pace. The underground positioning is not a posture, but rather a condition of how the work has always moved, or not moved, through the world. That is changing, deliberately and on the project’s own terms.
catalog
sneaki is distributed through DistroKid and available on all major platforms. Full catalog including select archive material available on Beatport.