Mardi Gras World better get ready for a little fire-breathing this weekend.
Dragonette, a three-piece electro-pop outfit from Canada, will be burning up crowds Saturday at Buku Music and Arts Project. The band’s biggest claim to fame may be its collaboration on Martin Solveig’s 2010 earworm “Hello,” but its latest album “Bodyparts” has helped put Dragonette on the map as spinners of stompy, energetic, catchy pop jams.
At the center of it all is Martina Sorbara, a frontwoman with a sugary, yet strangely charming voice and a talent for kicking Dragonette’s sets into high gear. Over the phone, she sounds calm and collected, but on stage she likes to crank up the intensity.
“I think my body almost shuts down before I go on stage because it’s like preserving energy,” Sorbara laughed.
It’s not all bubblegum pop and sweetness, though. Live drums and bass back up Sorbara’s infectious energy with more of a rock-and-roll edge than your typical electro-pop act, rounding out Dragonette’s chick-driven, ass-kicking vibe. Nobody pens lyrics like, “I only live in this city ’cause this city can’t live without me” unless they’ve got a little moxie.
Sorbara’s swagger has earned Dragonette comparisons to fellow Buku performers Icona Pop, which Sorbara looks forward to seeing this weekend.
“I think there are some places where we overlap with Icona Pop,” Sorbara said. “I think that’s accurate for some of our stuff. It’s hard to be like, ‘Dragonette is a band that sounds like X,’ just because we’re so unmarried to any particular style.”
Dragonette definitely doesn’t seem concerned with the boundaries of their genre — “Bodyparts” ranges from ’80s throwbacks and slinky dance tracks to anthems for a girl power rampage. Sorbara, who also takes the creative lead in the band, blames a variety of influences for sending its sound in so many different directions.
“It kind of goes all over the place. I get inspired by … other kinds of music, like, not our genre. Like country music or jazz music lyrics or something that takes my head out of the usual place it’s in when I’m writing,” Sorbara said.
Because of Dragonette’s diverse catalogue, Sorbara said she gets more freedom to tell stories she hopes people find relatable.
“The only thing that I try to do is get stuff out from the recesses of my mind, and I feel lucky to be able to have this medium,” Sorbara said. “I’m not the greatest communicator in the world, like, emotionally or otherwise, and I feel like writing songs is just the way that I communicate with something deeper inside of me.”
No matter the sound, story or spin, Sorbara always enjoys delivering it with a punch in her performances.
“It all depends on who’s there and what the audience is giving us, but mostly we just like to show everybody a good time and get them jumping around,” Sorbara said.
Dragonette will hit the Ballroom stage at Buku Project at 10:45 p.m. this Saturday.
