As December drew to a close, the Library Lounge became an unlikely stage as Dorian Electra arrived to celebrate ART. A playful, self-aware exploration of art history, the book pairs photographs and drawings across 138 pages, reworking figures from Antiquity to Pop Art - from Rembrandt to Warhol - through deliberately amateurish studies that blur homage and experiment.
To mark its launch, Electra hosted a one-night scratch performance, transforming the quiet space into a charged, salon-like setting for short works-in-progress spanning music, text and performance. Highlights included a mini-harp rendition of O-Zone’s Dragostea Din Tei, an acoustic take on Henry VIII’s Greensleeves, and a lecture from the Crab Museum in Kent.
Performances on the night from: Dorian Electra, Rukaiyah Qazi, Starmaxx, Ned Suesat, Henry Collins, Jamie Bulled, Georgia Somary, Bert, Ben Cole, Günseli Yalcinkaya, Count Baldor, Liam Konemann and Vasso Vu.
We caught up with Dorian ahead of the evening to ask her to answer and sketch responses to some very important questions.
How would you describe the link between your musical practise & the concept of the book?
I think of the book as my version of drawing the great masters (lol), which is actually very similar to how I approach music sometimes. Even when you’re trying to make something completely new, you’re inevitably channeling other voices, other eras, other sounds. You’re borrowing, remixing, and responding. So in a way, both the music and the book are about that process - how creation is never isolated, but always part of a long conversation with the past.
When starting a project musical or otherwise, what’s the first spark - sound, image or feeling?
That and sometimes weirdly a dance move or a certain body language, or even a color scheme.
Who is your favourite historical figure? Can you draw them and we’ll guess who it is.
You’re doing a book tour to celebrate the release of ART, what’s the best discovery you’ve made in any of the cities?
I’ve loved meeting the experimental jazz freaks in every city where I’ve hosted a book launch. I’m a musician, but I don’t often get to be around classic musicians like that.
Draw the most important thing in your bedroom?
You’ve traversed & existed in a lot of different creative spaces. Where or with who do you feel most creatively understood?
It feels amazing when working with a music producer who just understands your vibe, the kinds of chord progressions you like, the sounds you want to hear without you having to explain much. I think that is one the times I feel the most creatively understood.
If you could kidnap any artist from the present or past, who would it be?
I guess it would be nice to kidnap Van Gogh, give him a nice place to live with some good food, and get him some therapy and meds lol, poor guy.
Kiss, Marry, Kill - Warhol, Rembrandt, Picasso?
Kiss warhol, marry Rembrandt, kill Picasso. Or just be friends with them all :D hahaha
Your music & aesthetic is extremely eclectic and jumps between Pop, Hyper-Pop, Metal, Rock & Folk, can you draw a cocktail that expresses your vibe best?
