Burnley DJ launches KŌZĒ Sessions to grow electronic music scene

A local DJ from Burnley is set to continue his independent events project later this week, with the second instalment of his KŌZĒ Sessions on Friday.

Sam Cheyte, a local DJ from the area, has developed KŌZĒ with support from The King's Trust, with the idea of building something regular around underground electronic music in Burnley. Cheyte will perform five-hour sets himself, mainly across Minimal, Tech House, Breaks and Garage, with the first taking place on Friday, September 25th at The Landmark.

The second event will be held on Friday, October 2nd, with the final two dates taking place on Friday, October 16th and Friday, October 23rd, but what made playing mainly across minimal tech house, breaks and garage the ideal choices stylistically for the events?

“Just my taste, I think,” Sam said. “I try not to pin myself down to one genre too rigidly because as much as my main taste kind of lie with minimal house and just that stripped back house sound, I find myself just interested in interesting music and generally if it kind of fits the overall sound of my taste and the kind of sound that I want KŌZĒ Sessions to to showcase, for want of a better word.

“So regardless of whether it's minimal house or whether it's garage or whether it's breakbeat or whether it's techno or whatever, as long as it kind of shares, I want each kind of track, regardless of what genre it is, to feel like it's cut from the same cloth,” Sam concluded.

Cheyte’s idea is for the KŌZĒ Sessions to evolve into listening bars and listening cafes. The current KŌZĒ Sessions will see a small selection of vinyl records go up for sale along with listening facilities, which include vinyl listening decks that people can plug their headphones into, and listen to records that they're browsed whilst they're at the events, and the DJs are playing.

“That's intending to kind of replicate the longer-term vision of a permanent premises that sells records, and that offers comfortable seating, and a nice setting for people to come in and browse through records, have a listen, discover new music, and obviously that hosts the same kind of events that we're going to be putting on over the next couple of months,” Sam said when explaining the long-term vision of KŌZĒ.

There’s also a bit of history behind the vision of KŌZĒ. In 2025, Cheyte organised and DJed an event in Burnley, which went on to raise £174 for Pendleside Hospice. But how much did that experience elevate that sense of urgency that this is what he had to do?

“Quite a lot, actually,” Sam admitted. “That specific fundraiser event was on the back of DJing at that same venue for free for two or three months prior, every Thursday, for about three or four months, and then I said to him, can I put this event on, and can I fundraise? And they'd just got a new sound system in, and that event was the first time that I heard this music, like, myself DJing on a proper sound system, and it was also made me realise that I can get people through the door, and that I can raise some, some money in doing so.

“So it was like, okay, because I was kind of expecting no one to turn up on it to be just me in a room on my own playing music, but, it was really well received, and there were people coming up to me saying we need more, we wish there were more places that played this kind of music in Burnley. And so, yeah, it, I guess it did spark some, that event did spark a bit of urgency in me, and it was, was shortly after that, that I went to the King's Trust with this idea,” he concluded.