Even if she weren't standing on stage in a sleeveless leopard-print shirt, brandishing an electric guitar with a matching leopard-print strap, singer/guitarist Empress Erin Harpe's crown of tussled dreadlocks would make her stand out in a crowd. As it was, Harpe simultaneously picked and strummed on stage, while bassist Juicy Jim Countryman, synth/sampler player MicL Ptvn and drummer Art McConnell cooked up a simmering stir-fry of ska and dance beats, with undercurrents of Caribbean island rhythms for the first night of Lovewhip's month-long residency at the Barley Pub.

They played a series of songs from their last album, 2003's Bouncehall, as well as new material. Countryman bounced like a bobble head as he plucked his strings, and Harpe swayed her hips, yowling pleasurably into the microphone.

Recently honored with a Boston Music Award for "Best World Act of 2004," Lovewhip is bearing in a slightly different direction with the approach of their new album, Virtual Booty Machine, scheduled for release in May.

"There's been a heavy influence of Afro-beat and reggae stuff. But now we're trying to actually tone it down to even more of a sparse, new-wave influence," Countryman said in an interview between sets. In Lovewhip's own cheesy vernacular, they are shifting away from "world booty pop" and toward something called "electro-dance rock."

Along with their new style comes a modified cast of musicians. Harpe and Countryman, who started the band together some six years ago, decided to drop their horn section and percussionists, slimming down from a bulky, eight-piece band to a simple quartet.

"One of my favorite blasts from the past lately is the Cars, so it's a mixture of the Cars with pumped-up, hyper-reggae beats mashed together. It kind of sounds like old B-52's or some early Talking Heads," Countryman explained.

No surprise he should mention those particular bands. After sharing a bill with Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, the two former Talking Heads members worked with Lovewhip on a remix of their former title track, "Bouncehall."

Opening for the B-52's at Campanelli Stadium last year, just two days after Ptvn joined the band, is one of their fondest memories as a group.

"We warmed up for Scissor Sisters and the B-52s at our first stadium show, in front of 4,000 people. So we found (Ptvn) 48 hours before the show, had one rehearsal, taught him five songs, and when we got to the show there were supposed to be four bands on the bill. One of the bands cancelled, so they said to us, 'OK, we're gonna double your set from 30 minutes to 60 minutes,'" Countryman recalled. "We're already shitting our pants because there's 4,000 people there to see the B-52's."

Nevertheless, they sailed through the set unscathed, and many young fans received Empress Erin's autograph.

At the Barley Pub, Countryman's punk proclivities effervesced from the bass strings, and Harpe's delta-blues training gleamed through her ska guitar riffs. Harpe released a solo blues CD, Blues Roots, in 2002, demonstrating her vocal and instrumental dexterity. Extensive travels through Kenya helped her to diversify her world sound.

"I just tried to study music as much as I could when I was there," she said. "I looked into African music a lot."

When Harpe hooked up with Countryman in the late '90s, she had never before picked up an electric guitar. She quickly adapted, and Lovewhip's first album Whip It Baby!, came out in 2000 on the band's own record label, Juicy Juju Records.

The band members admit that their lyrics contain little depth. So what?

"It'd be cool to bring a message to people, but it's such a confusing time about what the message would be," said Countryman. He related an incident shortly after Sept. 11, in which the group posted messages on their Web site, messages that were viewed by many to be (gasp) controversial. Several fans asked to be removed from the band's mailing list and threatened not to attend another Lovewhip show ever again.

"I thought that everyone coming to our shows was fairly progressively minded, but it's not true," said Countryman, who decided henceforth to stick with dance lyrics.

Indeed, the "danceability" factor is high for Lovewhip's music. On stage they sporadically whipped out a harmolodica or tambourine, transitioning between ska jams with glimmers of punk and pure Jamaican reggae. They travel with their own lightshow equipment, and during the second set Empress Erin strapped a pair of extraterrestrial tinted goggles to her face. The pub mood was exceptionally buoyant.

Still, the Barley Pub's dance floor remained sparsely populated throughout the evening, disappointing Juicy Jim.

"I don't think people were dancing enough," he said. "I didn't look at anybody because they weren't dancing."

Take note, all you shy people: Lovewhip wants to see you on your feet.

"I think that's the purpose of music," declared Empress Erin with a laugh.

The band returns to the Barley Pub every Wednesday through February. They're also playing at the Muddy River on Feb. 11.