Photo by Venti Goth
Audio By Carbonatix
The homespun party series, My Friend Misty, spearheaded by David Sinopoli, Elad Zvi, and Veronica “Mokibaby” Gessa, extends its soirees at downtown’s Floyd to the airwaves through its nascent same-named label, beginning with a compilation album likely to be released next month.
“We have flirted with the idea of making a label for a while,” Sinopoli explains to New Times. “Elad and I have been in the studio for the last eight months with our producer Pezlo MD, basically recording edits that we wanted to play at the party.” The edits were usually to songs the two liked but needed more energy for the dance floor.
The monthly party series began in 2023 and deliberately chose to create a romantic atmosphere that breathes out slower electronic music — like chugging a healing elixir, wiping your mouth with your sleeve, and heading to the club. During Misty, Floyd’s already red curtains turn a saturated crimson; roses appear like Shakespearean sonnets, and Sinopoli and Zvi (AKA “Maccabi”) slow cook techno, indie dance, romantic house, rock ’n roll, and anything slow and introspective.
Be it the music or Gessa creating an interactive room within Floyd to capture the Misty feeling, the night takes you out of the comically congested narrow strip of Eleventh Street and far away from the pushing on the Space Terrace on a popular night.
The three have been wanting to evolve Misty into a label for some time. A foundation was laid when Sinopoli was at a Heat game last year with his friend, Diego Gomez de Cordova. Gomez de Cordova told Sinopoli that he and his partner, Albert Piedrahita, started a new business venture: Algorhythms Music Group.
The company is a music label collective that provides label services for dance music brands. Algorhythms acts as an intermediary for brands that want to create a label but do not want the rigmarole of hiring a full team or dealing with accounting and royalties. Sinopoli, feeling this was perfect to push a label for Misty, sent over the aforementioned edits to Gomez de Cordova.
Sinopoli soon sent tracks around to DJs and enlisted help in putting together the bona fide Misty compilation album. The album will feature like-minded artists from the psychedelic and feverish styled techno of Mexico’s Rebolledo and Paulor, the silky house trappings of Italy’s White Square, and help from locals. DJs and the like can purchase the album on Beatport; casual listeners can stream it on the usual platforms. “We hope people can understand the style and the type of music we play,” explains Sinopoli.
“I think what we do at Misty is bring a full experience to people, and this is just a natural evolution into the brand and to creating something that’s fully sensory,” adds Gessa. “Now that the party has inspired so much music, we’ve developed this specific sound, and now we get to share not just artists who contribute to that kind of sound but our local artists and people who have come to our parties and got inspired.”
Sinopoli notes that the Misty concept can continue to progress into different formats beyond a monthly party or label. It’s also a chance to shift the Miami scene towards more indie dance, a subgenre known for a hypnotic groove, reverb, and guitars and vocals (think artists like DJ Koze, Red Axes, or Floating Points).
The Beatport top indie dance charts, Sinopoli points out, often list tracks that fit the more ubiquitous afro-house or melodic techno rather than the niche subgenre. “I think doing this label allows us to identify what we believe indie dance is,” says Sinopoli, highlighting examples like dance edits from LCD Soundsystem and the Rapture.
The compilation album will also be on the foothills of Misty’s next party series this Sunday, February 15, where it returns to the Museum of Sex after its July debut. This edition will again feature a wave of Miami-based artists playing across the museum’s multiple rooms. Gessa will have artistic control over the theme and collaborate with Club Space, entertainment company Iconique, and Club Space’s dance director, Elena Lee, to design the Misty dancers’ wardrobes.
In a city where pulling up to the South Beach club in a Lamborghini is fantasized, My Friend Misty is the ‘59 convertible driving on the MacArthur Causeway, low and slow, in the golden sunset with something deep and ethereal playing in the background. “We are going to try our best to stay more on the trippy, hypnotic, elegant style of it,” says Sinopoli, “and not overproduce.”
My Friend Misty: Two of Hearts. With Sinopoli, Maccabi, Bort, Cami di Marzo, Generous B, Cole Knight, and more. 6 p.m. Sunday, February 15, at the Museum of Sex, 2200 NW 24th Ave., Miami; 786-206-9210; museumofsex.com. Tickets are $25 until 10 p.m., $40 thereafter, via dice.fm.
