Démira

Biography

Démira is a singer, songwriter, poet, and producer. She worked closely with Electric Lady Studios in New York City until the covid outbreak. Démira creates her songs autonomously, and played shows at festivals and clubs throughout New York, Norway, The Netherlands, Malta, Sweden, and Germany. Her debut album Iggy will be released and celebrated with a release show in the Amsterdam venue Melkweg on May 10 2023.

Since she started playing the guitar, Démira has been drawn to the stage: she debuted at the age of 10 in the semifinals of AVROTROS Junior Songfestival with her song “Ik Wil Rocken” (2007) and at the age 14, Démira first drew praise for her alternative folk music and intense lyrics as a singer songwriter when she won the national High School Music Competition. She released her first solo EP “Pay Attention” in 2012. Reviewers called her “the illegitimate daughter of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.” In 2013, she took part in the television programme “De Beste Singer-/Songwriter van Nederland” (the best singer/songwriter of the Netherlands). She recorded a second EP named Indigo together with her band, after which she played three sold out tours in the Netherlands. She won two poetry prizes, performed at several festivals in the Netherlands, Germany, Malta and Norway and was the supporting act of Maria Mena, John Newman, King Charles, Boy & Bear and Ben Howard. Her third EP White Ravens entered the top 3 of the Dutch iTunes Charts in 2016.

Since 2017, Démira has been revising her sound due to neurological problems caused by a tumor. She wrote music for artists among which Endymion, ASH, Quentyn and played 52 sold out shows playing semi-electronic music at theatre festival Boulevard. She revised the national anthem for the EuroHockey Championships and worked with film composer Ilan Eshkeri on the music for British Academy Film Award nominated TV show The Athena (2018) and Riviera (2020) starring Julia Stiles.

Producing music became a new means of catharsis. In 2018, Démira was signed to Electric Lady Studios Management in New York City, where she flourished as a multi-instrumentalist and producer by combining their traditional instruments with her own field recordings of i.a. windscreen wipers, jet fighters and electronic toys. She played her autonomously created analogue electronic music in New York nightclubs including House of Yes, Berlin and The Sultan Room. She recorded her EP New Voodoo with friend Sam van Hoogstraten (Robin Kester, A.M. Sam) and Gosha Usov (Frank Ocean, A$AP Rocky). The songs were mixed by Joe Visciano (Blood Orange, Lianne la Havas) and mastered by Heba Kadry (Björk, Nicolás Jaar). The EP came out in April 2021, and SPIN Magazine selected New Voodoo as one of the best songs of 2021.

The 25-year-old ex-resident of Electric Lady Studios, audio geek and art history student does not make any concession in song structures or sound: her tracks are both catchy and experimental, intuitive, personal, and always in motion. Her music is ambitious but accessible — surrealist, dancey, intense, and smart. Her debut album Iggy comes out in May 2023. Singles Cheap Date, Salai, Metropolis, The Parthenon and Pallas already have seen the daylight. "Metropolis" was Pandora Picks Curator's Choice in July 2022 and pinned to AMP Fresh Cuts in August 2022. Démira’s tunes received airplay on 3FM (NL), NPO Radio 2 (NL), Hoxton Radio (UK), AltFM (NL), Frecuencia Millennial (MEX), TIDE (DE) and FutureGroove (JP). Démira is currently writing music for Theatre Oostpool production Dochters van Nino and will be touring from March 4 until May 20, 2023. From January until June 2024, Démira will be writing music and performing live in the five-hour-play Het Achtste Leven, directed by Daria Bukvic.