Photo by Aloha Burn
Audio By Carbonatix
It couldn’t have been more than five minutes before Demian Licht (“Luz González Torres”) was showing me her coveted possession: a one-of-a-kind Yaeltex MiDi controller with an Instinkt design. Its bulbous knobs and buttons lacked numbers or values and resembled a contemporary art piece more than hardware.
If you were to use it, you would have nothing to guide you but your instinct on what may be too soft or loud, too much or too little. Licht, however, loves nothing more than using her instincts to guide her music.
“It’s named Instinkt because I cannot see the values,” She explains to New Times from her home in Querétaro, Mexico. “It requires me to be confident with the sound I’m making. I have to be instinctive. When I play in this mindset, the magic comes.”
The magic will, unfortunately, come to Miami in a bittersweet sendoff. Licht will be making her Miami debut on October 10 at Shirley’s theater stage inside Gramps, which announced its January 2026 closure, for a one-and-done show. Nonetheless, her presence will outshine any dread when you see her perform as a tried-and-true electronic artist.
The Mexican artist does not need the newest CDJs and mixers to entrance the crowd. Indeed, she needs no CDJ because her track selection is her own music, and anything created during a set is ephemeral for that night only.
“I’m not a DJ at all,” she confesses. “I’m very performative. To perform without my music would not make sense. I always perform live with my music.” A live set may include using fairly minimal hardware, such as a launch pad and a controller. “The magic is in the software Ableton. All the work is there. You will see it’s something cinematic. Of course, it’s techno music, but it’s not regular music for the dance floor.”
Licht recalls being entranced by electronic music as a teenager through bands and artists like Kraftwerk, Can, the Chemical Brothers, and Klaus Schulze. She studied sound engineering and started making music almost two decades ago. Her first release, however, was not until 2016, with her Female Criminals Vol. 1 EP on her label, Motus. To be closer to the electronic pulse, she moved to Berlin for a while.
It’s challenging to overstate Licht’s protean talents in her music making. But look at “Sin” for a prime example. It all begins with a strong, rippling techno bassline. She then tweaks it so slightly to give it a ghetto house sound with the short, bouncy loops she created from her vocals. When you’re expecting some sanitized four-on-the-floor loop, she creates an ominous, stormy cloud of synth work that slips the track into some Berlin dungeon club. Cymbals rain blood and then are subtracted to make room for a light melody.
And that’s just one example — from ten years ago. “Without Name No. 1,” released last November, begins with ambient interludes that soon give way to heavy synth work, enveloping everything in a blanket of snow and bare-bones techno. The high-pitched synths sound like violins from a Schoenberg composition. She explains that her tracks begin as a “creative process that is sort of like a formula.” Licht views it as a “conceptual script,” through which she can convert her ideas into music using the software Ableton. Her knowledge of the program was so extensive that she later became an Ableton-certified trainer and teaches classes to novices.
Granted, Mexico has an electronic music scene, but she had no one like an older sibling, friend, or parent who pushed her to this surreal sound. It was instead two-fold. She would watch old MTV videos showing Aphex Twin, the Chemical Brothers, and The Prodigy. She was also inspired by the late auteur David Lynch and his surreal qualities and mysticism, which left more questions than answers.
“Not just for me, but many artists. He was a filmmaker and musician. What resonated with me more was that he was a magician. His visual aesthetic and universe were a perfect script for me.”
Above all, Licht did not want to be labeled a Mexican artist or one who haphazardly incorporates Mexican instruments into her music. “I wanted to sound global, and I think it’s there. If you listen to my music, I don’t think you can tell it’s by a girl in Mexico. And that’s why I picked up the name ‘Demian,’ because it sounds like a boy or a girl.”
People can expect an Ableton North American tour from Licht, where she will teach students about music-making. She is also heading to Australia in the summer to perform. In five years, Licht expanded her mindset even further, moving back to Mexico and exploring activities beyond production, like dance and slacklining.
She believes the distractions broadened her music. Whether it’s a product of time or more activities, Licht’s unabashed music is her own, and the listener can hear that in under a minute.
“I don’t pretend to be the best, and I don’t think my sound is the best, but I think it’s unique. It sounds like me.”
Demian Licht. 10 p.m. Friday, October 10, at Gramps, 176 NW 24th St., Miami; zeyzeymiami.com. Tickets cost $42–$78 via eventbrite.com.
