Mary Alouette brings gypsy jazz with a dose of electronica to the Cantab Thursday night

Next Thursday (March 21), Cantab Lounge (d.b.a. Club Bohemia) will experience a metamorphosis, turning into a gypsy jazz club of the 1930s, though with a distinctively modern twist. NYC-based Mary Alouette brings her band into town to celebrate the release of her new EP, The Lark. It follows her 2012 debut, Midas. If this were just a sassy jazz album with dazzling classical/gypsy guitar picking and a sultry and passionate vocalist, it would be wonderful. However, there’s something quite unexpected added into the mix on the new songs—a love of electronica.

Her passion for synths, beats, loop pedals and drum machines seems a bit strange when you consider her degree in opera and classical training as a vocalist. She merges all this with the gypsy guitar style of Django Reinhardt to create something quite magical. Her new album, recorded at ishlab studio in Brooklyn, is due out this month. It features an eclectic array of intrumentation—acoustic and Moog electric guitars, Moog Voyager synthesizer, loop pedals and drum machines and double bass— blending the boundaries between dance music, gypsy jazz and dreamy pop. Alouette regularly performs her gypsy jazz repertoire, and also works as a multi-instrumentalist, composer and assistant producer at ishlab, working with Daniel Lynas (A$AP Rocky, Das Racist, Neon Hitch, Skrillex). She’ll be performing with her band on Thursday night at 11pm at the Cantab’s downstairs stage.