SULTRY songstress Madeleine Peyroux, it's fair to say, has a history of erratic behaviour.
When on the brink of international stardom following the release of her 1996 debut album, Dreamland, the French-American folk-jazz chanteuse did what no one – least of all her record company – expected her to do.
Rather than hanging around to do t
he usual rounds promoting the new album, Peyroux took herself off to Paris to busk for seven years.
"It was great," recalls the singer, whose first album's sales still reached an impressive 200,000 copies worldwide. "I got to perform with fantastic musicians. I got to see Nina Simone. I could have kept running with it, but I decided to step back and take a breather."
Her record company must have breathed a huge sigh of relief when Peyroux finally resurfaced, but she would soon take to her heels again, this time just weeks after an impressive performance on Top of the Pops had brought her to mainstream attention in the UK.
Her disappearance prompted her record company into hiring a private detective to hunt for her, but when Peyroux was eventually tracked down in New York City, her manager asked the record company to "go away and leave her alone."
She may still get itchy feet more often than her label would like, but the smoky-voiced singer has nevertheless managed three albums in fours years, the latest being Bare Bones, which is described both as an extension of 2004's Careless Love and 2006's Half the Perfect World and a bold step into previously unexplored psychological terrain.
Produced by Larry Klein, this fluid new work is Peyroux's most personal to date, which is hardly surprising considering she had a hand in writing each of the 11 songs, marking the fulfilment of a lifelong dream.
"This really is a new experience for me – it's almost as if I got to make my first record again," explains the 34-year-old ahead of her visit to the Queen's Hall on Monday night.
"Larry really was the first person who ever said to me, 'Let's write every song on the record – you really should do this. I'd co-written with him a couple of times in the past, but this was a big leap for me as a writer, and also a deep exploration as a co-writer, not only in the experience of writing but also the message that I wanted to portray.
"Like the end of any event – being up all night, or when the rain stops and the sun comes out – it's a transitional moment of getting past some kind of struggle," adds Peyroux. Perhaps the biggest surprise to fans has been the album's many moments of light heartedness, which are not something one would previously have associated with the deep, deadly serious singer.
"I've been working toward this all along," she insists. "I don't think we can really know drama without knowing comedy. They need each other in order to be real and complete.
"So in a sense I am trying to push the envelope of that subtle marriage between two opposites – happy and sad, tragic and comic or grief and renewal," she adds thoughtfully.
Madeleine Peyroux, Queen's Hall, Clerk Street, Monday, 7pm, £25, 0131-668 2019