by: James Hebert

What Natalie Merchant calls "a problem," other musicians might consider a smile from on high. What they might feel about Natalie's little problem is perhaps best expressed by the title of one of her songs: Jealousy.

On the latest leg of a concert tour that has stretched to a year and counting, Merchant is explaining how she didn't really mean to be on the road this long. She had intended to just play "smaller venues that were more intimate" when she set out last year in support of her first solo album, Tigerlily.

"The problem is, then I went on to sell 2 million records, and more people wanted to see me play."

For fans of the singer-songwriter and former 10,000 Maniacs leader, that's no problem at all. It should come as especially welcome news to those who missed her sold-out show here last fall, since it means Merchant's returning -- just seven months later -- for a performance Tuesday at San Diego State University's Open Air Theatre.

"I used to say I'd like to tour a year for an album," she says by phone from New York. "But . . . " Her voice trails off with the exasperated laugh of a traffic cop on the autobahn. "I think in the future I might tour a little less."

Don't get her wrong -- it's not so much that Merchant's tired of performing. "It's just because I feel anxious about getting on with writing another record," she explains. "I still like the Tigerlily songs quite a bit, but I don't think they're really descriptive of what I'm doing now."

What the album's songs are descriptive of is a 32-year-old musician who has dared to leave behind the comforts of her artistic home -- and then decided that maybe she'll at least stay in the neighborhood for a while.

Tigerlily is an album rich with gently insistent melodies and Merchant's literate and highly personal lyrics. It's also not all that much different from the work of 10,000 Maniacs, the band Merchant joined as a teen-ager in Jamestown, N.Y., and left two years ago at the height of its hit-making rise.

To be sure, the alluring Top 10 single Carnival, with its Latin-accented percussion and languid guitar work, is a departure from the Maniacs' more conventional brand of pop. And the album's plentiful moments of spare, piano-and-vocal brooding are a contrast (though not always a particularly engaging one) to that band's more orchestrated sound.

But Tigerlily is still an album that fits the confines of a "standard electric band," in Merchant's words.

"I didn't stray too far from that concept when I made this record, and that was intentional," she says. "I wanted to work in a format that was really familiar, and see what I could explore within it."

World music

Now Merchant seems to be moving beyond that model, to a dabbling in international rhythms and traditional acoustic instruments. She just recorded a song with violinist Jay Ungar, who played on Tigerlily but is best known for his Ashokan Farewell, the haunting instrumental that became the theme for PBS' "Civil War" documentary.

"He's an amazing fiddle player, and a walking encyclopedia of knowledge of traditional music," says Merchant. The two recorded "this beautiful song in waltz time, and it had banjo and guitar. I'm not saying that's the direction I'm going in next, but it was so right to do it."

Merchant's wanderings -- "I find myself much freer when I'm away from home and traveling" -- also have led to fresh inspiration.

"It's really invigorating to listen to Greek music," she notes as an example, and then counts out a stuttering rhythm -- "ONE, two, three . . . one, TWO, three" -- for good effect. "I remember being at a (Greek) festival, drinking lots of . . . whatever it is . . . ouzo, and trying to dance to Greek music, and just not getting it!"

Natalie Merchant, international party animal? It doesn't quite fit the singer's image as either the darling of the politically conscious or a sanctimonious bore, depending on one's attitude toward her often topical songs.

But as her freewheeling concert here last fall showed -- Merchant launched into a spontaneous attempt at Bob Dylan's Tangled Up in Blue, despite not knowing all the words -- she is perfectly capable of good-natured goofiness.

"Americans of the '90s don't have too many opportunities to be in a group and lose themselves," she says, musing on the power of live performance. "Music has to be pretty good; you have to feel it pretty strongly. We're just a culture that doesn't do that very often."