Premiere: Démira Has Found Herself With New Voodoo
After leaving a punk concert at an underground swimming pool in Paris, Démira Jansen began shepherding to life her latest release, ‘New Voodoo.’ Fueled by that familiar post show adrenaline, Démira laid down the song’s first instrumentals. Finding herself in a city steeped in culture, Démira turned to French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s famous piece, Le Lit - to inspire the lyrics to ‘New Voodoo.’
Later on in London, with the help of Marli Wren at North Pole Studios, the song grew its legs. Démira started experimenting with the sounds of Bollywood and observing and recording the peculiar noises she’d hear in her daily life: windshield wipers, electronic toys, fighter jets, etc. Finally, in New York City, Démira combined her London recordings with the vintage instruments of Jimi Hendrix' Electric Lady Studios. With an ingredient list spanning three countries, post impressionist artwork, girl power and one crazy night in Paris, ‘New Voodoo’ came to life.
In the modern age of influence peddling, Démira is no stranger to the insecurities and self doubt social media can evoke: “influencers - basically everybody on social media platforms - have the ability to alter other people's perceptions of a situation…[as a result] insecurities infect most of us while we are at the same time participants of the problem.” According to Démira, It’s because of this phenomenon that after scrolling through our feeds we’re left feeling like our lives are insufficient or not enough. Démira drew from these challenges when conceptualizing “the Video for ‘New Voodoo’ which blends first person shooter with hide and go seek, I want to show you how I have been searching... for myself.” Démira described the process of filming ‘New Voodoo’ with filmmaker Nick Noyes:
‘Part of the video has been shot in an abandoned hotel in The Netherlands, the rest in a penthouse in Williamsburg New York City. I've been playing hide and seek with friends in the dark. Nick and I were "it" (he held the camera, I held a flickering searchlight) while music from dark fantasy movies came from the speakers. It felt like we were all ethical hackers and it was a lot of fun.’
Démira’s love of songwriting began at her hometown library. Drawn towards creativity at an early age, she began crafting her own stories and saving them onto floppy disks. At age 7, her parents gifted her a classical guitar: “thus song and writing came together.” As time moved on and life’s challenges grew, escaping into the writing process became a valuable tool, “to process traumas growing up - songwriting was very therapeutic for me but also awfully personal.” With the passing of time; the solace of songwriting grew into a craft and and a passion for Démira: “Now, at the age of 23, I have a less complicated relation and approach to it...I am only concerned about how good work requires nothing less than skill, passion and dedication and sharing it with people that ‘get it’”.
One of Dérmira’s motivations to do what she does is the excitement of collaborating with artists outside of the, “music industry bubble.” It’s through this collaboration with artists from different disciplines that Démira sustains her passion: “I enjoy working together with artists in other fields - I guess I am an artist who pursues not so much the development of a style but consider myself the chance to take different routes again and again.” Currently, Démira has plans in the works to team up with Amsterdam based fashion designers and visual artists for music videos and live performances. Through these dynamic collaborations, Démira keeps her work fresh and the boundaries of her creativity undefined.
Démira’s, ‘New Voodoo’ revels in being proud of who you are in spite of feeling lost and celebrates the trials of self discovery. Above all else, Démira is an ardent believer that art and creative expression is more essential now than ever. She ended our conversation about her release and future plans with the idea that: “art is needed in these testing times...music has this unparalleled ability to take all of one's pain, pull it into a single frame and invite us to relive it with all of the joy of the experience and none of the suffering.”