“Nostalgia implies a lack, which I’m not so interested in, and as for ‘retro’—well, that word is a pejorative for me,” Heatsick (aka the England-reared, Berlin-based Steven Warwick) told music site The Quietus last year. Those are heady words for a dance-music creator whose primary tool is one of those old Casio keyboards with the orange hexagonal drum pads, but the proof is in his rhythms, and Heatsick’s sense of the beat is sublime. Terekke, perhaps the most intriguing act on New York label L.I.E.S., uses more hardware and is more of a cosmic traveler, but his interstellar-gas-cloud music still originates from the desire to keep things simple. Both men push against the alleged strictures of dance music; opening for them at the new Florida Avenue joint Flash will be D.C.’s own Maxmillion Dunbar, a funk-flexer who also knows about secretly pretty things.

Heatsick performs with Terekke and Maxmillion Dunbar at 10 p.m. at Flash, 645 Florida Ave. NW. $6. (202) 827-8791. flashdc.com.