The siren’s call has ensnared the artist you knew as Destiny Claymore.
After dropping an EP, making her TV debut on Quibi, and snagging a role in the Ryan Reynolds comedy Free Guy, the Boston multi-hyphenate has dropped her former identity to develop a new project: deSirène. Combining the name “Destiny” with the French word for mermaid or siren, the new moniker denotes a renewed focus on music, as well as a swandive into hypnotic trance, house, and dance-pop beats. Her enchanting new sound flourishes on her new EP The Lure, out yesterday (July 25) ahead of her slot opening for Cat Burns tonight at Brighton Music Hall.
It’s a two-day reveal for a metamorphosis that’s been years in the making.
“The [artistic] shift definitely started after Free Guy during quarantine,” deSirène tells Vanyaland. “It was a difficult time for a lot of people, but for me it was the first time in my life I ever got to rest, listen to music, watch movies and take stock. My playlist slowly turned to house and dance-pop, and before I knew it that was all that I was listening to and all that I was creating. Such an aggressive name/sound [like] ‘Claymore’ no longer fit the dreamy harmonies, dance beats, or electronic sounds I was obsessed with.”
A fixation on Barrie’s ethereal song “Concrete” in particular fueled the first stages of deSirène’s stylistic shift over the winter of 2021. As colleagues fawned over her new material’s direction in private, she grew more disgruntled with “Destiny Claymore” in public.
“I knew it was time to change when I was bored on stage,” she elaborates. “I was bored performing my own music for months and had been in the studio making EDM and dance pop for a year in private… Claymore and hip-hop/R&B was done a long time ago. I always loved dance music and classical music, that’s how I started my career when I was 17 dancing as a soloist for Boston’s BalletRox dance company, and it makes sense that I’d find myself again in that music.”
The two tracks on The Lure lean heavily into the siren’s lore, setting the bait with the glittering devotion of “Limerence” and reeling in the catch with the ravenous sensuality of “THAT Love.” The brief EP’s plush beats stir up a deceivingly formidable riptide towards deSirène’s desires — but more importantly, it grants one woman the freedom to rewrite her own mythology.
“deSirène better identifies me as an artist because that’s what I am: A beautiful creature, a lure, and a split personality,” she concludes. “It’s about extreme duality — danceable songs with haunting harmonies. Love songs with lyrics that speak on healthy love instead of surface longing. Gentle yet exciting and sometimes scary. That’s what a siren is. That’s what a divine feminine and a balanced woman is.”
CAT BURNS + DESIRÈNE :: Wednesday, July 26 at Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave. in Boston, MA :: 7 p.m., all ages, $20 :: Advance tickets :: Facebook event page