by: Parry Gettelman (section: Calendar page: 6)

There was the slightest shadow of hoarseness in Natalie Merchant's silken voice as she spoke by phone from her New York City hotel. The cause: A late night out with a friend from England, the singer said. They had gone to a Cuban restaurant, and then one of the waiters directed them to an after-hours club that played Latin music.

"I'm learning how to do Latin dance," Merchant said. "Nothing all that structured, I've just been going to watch people."

On this foray, Merchant's friend spent the night fending off would-be suitors. Merchant, however, encountered an altruistic man who only wanted to teach her to dance.

"He said, 'I saw potential in you,'" Merchant said.

Merchant responded by telling her partner she danced professionally although not Latin style. And, of course, that's not a complete fib. Merchant often twirled and skipped across the stage while performing with her old band, the platinum-selling 10,000 Maniacs. However, she is not now, nor has she ever been, a member of the Martha Graham dance company.

"That's what's fun about New York; you can invent your character," said Merchant, who will play Orlando's Carr Performing Arts Centre Sunday.

Merchant's dance partner, actually, was not unduly impressed by Martha Graham. He did, however, pay Merchant a compliment.

"He said I got the whiteness out of my dancing," Merchant reported proudly.

Lately, Merchant said she has been developing a real taste for music that makes her move her hips.

"Definitely a lot of African pop music, Brazilian and Caribbean music that tends to liberate my bad white self," Merchant said wryly.

Those influences subtly inform Tigerlily, Merchant's solo debut. With 10,000 Maniacs, Merchant stuck pretty much to a mellow, slightly folkie brand of alternative rock. Tigerlily, which has already gone gold, is both more subdued and more arresting than Maniacs hits such as Candy Everybody Wants and Like the Weather. The new album's mood is rather somber and contemplative, but the arrangements have greater range and sophistication.

"I love the fact that so much of the percussion on the record, like on San Andreas Fault and Carnival, is just more of a sensual, subtle sort of rhythm," Merchant said. "And Jennifer (Turner) is a very sexual guitar player, no doubt about it. She comes more from the blues than the rock tradition, and a lot of that music has more of that feeling. She taught that to me."

Merchant said when she began looking for musicians, she decided she wanted a female guitarist.

"I don't want to sound too sexist, but probably the reason I wanted a woman was for that sensitivity, that awareness of the vocal line," Merchant said. "The interplay between us was really great."

Before recording, Merchant spent five months rehearsing with Turner, drummer Peter Yanowitz and bassist Barrie Maguire. (Bassist Fima Ephron is on board for the tour, along with percussionist Adrian Lopez, who plays on the hit single Carnival) The group lived in the same house in upstate New York most of that time.

"It was cozy," Merchant said. "We worked hard, but it was very pleasurable work. I got to be the piano player and organ player, and I was very excited about that. And playing with such a small group, only four pieces, there was a lot of space and room to listen to each other. I learned a lot about jamming. That's why there are so many jams on the record - the structure is really reminiscent of a lot of R&B stuff. There's the body of the song, the intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge - and then we just jam out on one part.">

Merchant is a big fan of R&B - she was thrilled, for instance, that her appearance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame extravaganza in Cleveland earlier this month won her admission to Al Green's soundcheck. But she said the R&B influence on Tigerlily, like the Caribbean and Latin influences, is not overt.

"Because there are so many influences," Merchant explained. "In this day and age, you can go into a record store and buy music from every corner of the planet, every period of time. You can listen to music from the 12th century all the way to the present. There's no way to restrict the influences to any particular one."

Merchant said the rehearsal and recording processes were collaborative although the songs were fairly complete when she took them in to the band. She had the chords and melodic structures - but not all the lyrics.

"I find lyric writing to be the hardest part - and Carnival was the worst," Merchant said. "A few songs didn't make it on the record because I couldn't figure out what they were about. It was a shame because, musically, they were there, and they're recorded - but up until the last minute, I couldn't determine what they were about."

In the past, Merchant has dealt with a number of social issues in lyrics. Tigerlily tells more personal stories. What she wants to do, she said, is evoke some kind of emotional response.

"Actually, the older I get, I'm much less interested in lyrics - I like to be left with impressions, images," she said. "I was listening to the new Radiohead record, and it's very impressionistic. You don't necessarily have a clue what that guy is saying. . . . I'd like to try something completely impressionistic, use more dream images, draw more from my subconscious than my conscious and escape logic a bit more."

Although Merchant was changing her musical approach significantly on Tigerlily, she said she didn't get flak from her record company during the process.

"They didn't really know much about what I was doing because I paid for it (recording) myself," she said. "I'm an artist who's sold 6 million records for their label, I've outlasted almost every executive there, and I think they felt like, 'Whatever you want to do, Natalie, go ahead. We trust you.' I thought they showed a lot of respect. Of course, behind closed doors, they were probably saying, 'Is it in time? Is it in tune? What's she doing up there? She won't send us any demos!' But I only took three months to make the record. I didn't make them wait too long."

Merchant also dispensed with a producer, instead relying on help from veteran Bearsville Studios engineer John Holbrook (the Band, the Isley Brothers) in working with vintage analog gear. She didn't want anyone in the studio trying to polish things up or second-guess what radio programmers or the record company might want to hear.

"I was concerned with what pleases Natalie," Merchant said. "And I wanted Jennifer to be happy - she had never been in the studio before, and I didn't want a producer suggesting she play a different sound, a different guitar, play a different line. I loved how raw the sound was, how unrefined, the tension that was in it."

On I May Know the Word, for instance, Turner wasn't happy with her solo, but Merchant was so blown away, she insisted on leaving it.