Revisiting the raw transcripts from our 2022 conversation with Martina Sorbara feels like examining a crucial pivot point. Dragonette, the beloved Toronto electro-pop outfit, had just re-emerged, but the architecture was different. The band was now, for all intents and purposes, Sorbara. But this wasn't a breakup or a messy schism. It was an evolution, a slow recalibration that had been happening for years, finally codified with the album Twenties.
This wasn't some abrupt tectonic shift. The groundwork was laid years prior with the 2016 album Royal Blues. Even then, the process had become atomized, a departure from the garage-band alchemy of their early days. Sorbara was already the project's primary creative engine, flying between writing sessions and collecting songs like a producer-curator.
“The last Dragonette album, Royal Blues, was made. The process was me, like, flying around, going, doing writing sessions and, like, writing little songs with producers here and there all over the place,” Sorbara explains. “So it was really, like, me with a, b, c, d, e, f producer.”
And so, Twenties felt less like a solo debut and more like a focusing of the lens. It was still Dragonette, but distilled to its most essential element: Sorbara’s singular voice and songwriting sensibility, now honed in partnership with a single producer, Dan Farber. The difference wasn't the personnel, but the methodology. This was a concerted, immersive album-making process, a first for her.
“This was very, like, concerted time, energy, effort, and one, like, living and breathing this process, which is, like, how people make albums, but I had never done that up until now,” she admits. Before, records were an accumulation of songs written between tours and life. This was a deliberate artistic statement.
The album's title track, “Twenties” served as a fascinating, if misleading, entry point. It's a dark, brooding piece of synth-pop, opening with what Sorbara hilariously describes as “almost like Batman fucking Gotham music.” It’s an outlier on an otherwise lighter record, a deliberate choice that speaks to her comfort with sonic contrast. The track explores a sense of release from the relentless grind of the modern music industry.
The titular choice itself is a study in nuance. Spelled with slangy affection, it’s meant to feel informal and familiar. “I like the way it looks. But, also, I think there's, like, there's something about the, it's like, diminutive and familial in a way that's like, it's not formal,” Sorbara says. “And I think that says something about, like, the relationship to everything that the word twenties is saying.” It’s a wordplay that echoes through the album, particularly in the song “Winning” with the lyric, “I spent all my twenties on you, baby,” a clever double entendre blurring the lines between money and youth.
But the darkness of the title track is not the album's mission statement. Sorbara’s core artistic philosophy is rooted in something else entirely. Her aesthetic is defined by a deep appreciation for levity, for a sense of humour woven into the fabric of the music. It’s the key differentiator that separates her work from so much of the self-serious indie landscape.
When the songs were completed and compiled together, I felt so excited about adding that sound and this story and this collection of songs to the story arc of Dragonette.
Her candid take on Radiohead is incredibly revealing. “I respect Radiohead. I love, I think they are such amazing musicians, and I, I don't want to listen to them for one second,” she confesses. “There's no... I want to hear lightness and not, not frivolousness or not that the music can't have depth. It's just, there's something in this indescribable, like, sense of humor or playfulness or lightheartedness or something that I enjoy in music.” That is the Dragonette DNA in its purest form.
That playfulness was on full display with the lead single, “New Suit.” The track is a bold declaration, a sonic strut brimming with confidence. Sorbara calls it a “How do you like me now?” moment, a direct address to anyone questioning the new configuration. The lyric video, with its distinct Monty Python-esque absurdism, perfectly captured that blend of serious message and irreverent delivery. It’s funny, but it makes its point.
When this new collection of songs was complete, Sorbara faced a choice: release it under her own name, invent a new moniker (her joke name, Papa Sweat, remains a brilliant aside), or continue the Dragonette legacy. She chose the latter, not out of commercial necessity but artistic conviction.
“When the songs were completed and compiled together, I felt so excited about adding that sound and this story and this collection of songs to the story arc of Dragonette,” she says. “I just felt like that's, it fills out this band and this journey in a way that makes me feel proud.” It was a move to enrich the catalogue, not abandon it.
The catalyst for this creative surge was producer Dan Farber. Their connection was immediate, a partnership she describes as finding a “music soulmate.” It was a collaboration that allowed her to finally break free from her old writing habits. “Before this, it was like I was like a little goblin in a in a cave, like, writing music being like, I can't be in a room with anybody,” she recalls. With Farber, the process was goofy, fun and creatively exacting.
Of course, Sorbara’s pen has reached far beyond the Dragonette discography. She has a fascinating parallel career as a songwriter for other artists, a world with its own strange rules. A credit on a Keith Urban song came about randomly when a bridge from an unfinished session was repurposed. “I didn't have anything really to do with it except for I did,” she laughs, summing up the often-impersonal nature of LA songwriting.
In stark contrast was her session with Cyndi Lauper, an experience so intimidating she almost cancelled. “I was like, she can't wanna be in a room with me. There's no way. That's crazy. Like, I'm terrible,” she remembers feeling. But Lauper, a personal idol, was everything she’d hoped for, a moment of meeting your hero and not being disappointed.
Then there’s the Carly Rae Jepsen connection, a story steeped in the tight-knit Canadian music scene. A song she wrote with Richard X in London found its way to Jepsen, who had actually opened for Dragonette during her own burgeoning career. It’s a great snapshot of the industry's circular nature, where opening acts become superstars who then cut songs by the headliners they once supported.
Through it all, the craft of songwriting remains paramount. For Sorbara, it’s everything. “That's the whole shebang,” she states plainly. Her love for hooks and clever wordplay is the throughline connecting her jazzy, folky roots to the polished electro-pop that made her famous.
And no discussion of Dragonette is complete without acknowledging “Hello” the global smash with Martin Solveig that has become a certified classic. Its inclusion in the hit show *Ted Lasso* gave it a massive second life, cementing its status beyond a simple dance-floor anthem. It has stood the test of time.
Looking back at this moment in 2022, Sorbara was on the cusp of rediscovering her project’s identity in a live setting. The album was done, but the visual and performance language was still being written. The stunning album cover, featuring Sorbara in vibrant body paint, was a last-minute, spontaneous creation driven by makeup artist Misty Fox. It was a happy accident, a perfect visual metaphor for the album itself: bold, personal and unapologetically colourful.
At the time, she was filled with a palpable excitement for what was next, a feeling she called being “positively nervous.” It was the energy of an artist not starting over, but starting anew, carrying the weight and glory of her past into a future she was designing on her own terms.
519 Magazine Archive: We are thrilled to officially unearth the 519 Magazine Digital Vault. This isn't just a re-post; it's a high-fidelity restoration of a pivotal era in music journalism. By pairing original print dates with modern retrospectives, we’re bridging the gap between historical rock-and-roll grit and the lightning-fast performance of today’s web. These stories—once locked in physical print and lost URLs—are now back, fully searchable, and optimized for a new generation of fans.
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We are thrilled to officially unearth the 519 Magazine Digital Vault. This isn't just a re-post; it's a high-fidelity restoration of a pivotal era in music journalism. By pairing original print dates with modern retrospectives, we're bridging the gap between historical rock-and-roll grit and the lightning-fast performance of today's web. These stories—once locked in physical print and lost URLs—are now back, fully searchable, and optimized for a new generation of fans.
