Live at the Destiny Inn Shows the Psychedelic Side of Miami Electronic Artists and Nightlife

Tomorrow night, the Destiny Inn will open for business. More of an idea and an ethos than a location, the Destiny Inn — summoned in spirit by Floyd’s new monthly Thursday-night party, Live at the Destiny Inn — will offer an alternative to traditional Miami-nightlife fare, occupying a deliberately hazy middle ground between pulse-pounding techno thrills and the lull of ambient works.

“We plan to showcase it all, from live ambient and downtempo sets to blazing fast electro and juke sets,” local talent buyer Ray Fernandez says. As the founder of More or Less, Fernandez has repeatedly helped book forward-thinking electronic acts for Miami clubs over the past three years. More or Less’ newly founded party series with Miami mainstay Klangbox.FM — Extra Credit — has already produced several unforgettable DJ sets and moments at Floyd, perhaps most memorably an impromptu collaboration between DJ/producer Call Super and the de facto leader of the Wu-Tang Clan himself, RZA.

Now, in association with Nick León and the Space Tapes crew, Fernandez and More or Less are reorienting — along with Miami’s cadre of dedicated club dwellers — toward live electronic music under the banner of Live at the Destiny Inn.

“Ray approached me with the concept and the name originally,” León shares. “We wanted to curate an event that felt more like a psychedelic lounge from the future or the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks. We also wanted to include live music but more in the vein of electronic live sets.”

The idea of “live” electronic music often befuddles casual clubgoers. After all, dance culture has been built primarily around the time-honored tradition of the DJ set, wherein a selector bends genres and breaks brains often using little more than two turntables and a mixer. Live electronic performances, by contrast, see an artist generating their music on the fly, relying on their compositions and knowledge of their gear to get bodies moving without having to dig through a record crate. Put simply, they’re analogous to traditional concerts held by a band; if you can conceptually swap strumming a guitar or banging a drum for triggering a loop in Ableton or fiddling with a synthesizer, then congratulations — you now understand live electronic music.

Live at the Destiny Inn will celebrate both strands of electronic music, blending the more DJ-and-party-oriented world of More or Less with the off-kilter production and left-field sensibilities of Space Tapes and its artists. In León’s words, “the ultimate plan is to combine both of our crowds through some sort of middle ground.”

According to Fernandez, the name for the new monthly event was borne from a recent trip playing gigs and visiting friends in L.A.

“I was with a couple buds en route to do some record shopping and passed by this sketchy-looking motel called Destiny Inn,” Fernandez says. “We all thought the name was pretty funny, and for some reason it resonated deeply with me. It reminded me of a lot of the music I’ve been into lately. I thought it would be a cool name for a party where we can play hazy, dreamy, psychedelic club music.”

Ultimately, both the More or Less and Space Tapes teams hope to tread new paths of possibility for Miami nightlife through their collaboration.

“We want to do our part in creating something new for Miami,” Fernandez says. “There are so many hidden talents in this city who aren’t given a platform to rise, grow, and perform in a club because there are far too many cookie-cutter club nights that refuse to stray off their respective paths. We also aim to unify the ‘heads,’ so to speak, while maintaining a judgment-free environment.

“We want clubgoers to feel they are in a laid-back dream, maybe sipping on a lemonade, chatting with a friend.”

Live at the Destiny Inn. With Nick León, Bear, Terence Tabeau, Klauss, and DJ Ray. 8 p.m. Thursday, May 10, at Floyd Miami, 34 NE 11th St., Miami; 786-618-9447; floydmiami.com. Admission is free.