"All the songs are about transportation, motion," explains Seattle-based singer-songwriter Laura Veirs, talking about her new album, Year Of Meteors.

"If you listen to the words, there's always some movement happening - whether it's greyhounds running down a mountainside as mud flows, or a person flying off into the sun, or someone lurking around the bottom of the sea.

"I think that's because I was in motion so much of the year. It felt like we were flying around the earth like meteors.

"We met a lot of bright stars that flew away from us."

Year Of Meteors is the result of a collaboration between Laura, her band The Tortured Souls and producer Tucker Martine. Full of vivid, elemental imagery floating over a dreamy, mesmerising musical landsape, it's a haunting blend of folk and indie pop.

Rockier (in the musical sense) than her acclaimed debut Carbon Glacier, Year Of Meteors was written after spending most of 2004 touring.

There are, Laura says, "love songs related to that experience, like the struggles of being away from home and away from your partner. Or having my band and the different relationships I have formulated - many of them very close because of the intense circumstances of touring. So it's a relationship record too.

"I love touring, it's an adventure. I always imagined it would be completely glam and fun. There are those sides to it but it can be very chaotic too.

"I found myself pretty burned out after my last tour and decided to take two weeks off this summer.

I spent two weeks in Alaska and it totally recharged me. It was really rugged and remote and very wild.

We were reading Jack London's Call Of The Wild and walking up close to grizzly bears. It was perfect to be in a place far away from everyday struggles."

Brought up in Colorado Springs, Laura first studied geology (along with Mandarin Chinese) at college in rural Minnesota before she got into music. She claims to have been more interested in sport and outdoor activities than anything else in her early years.

It wasn't until her late teens that she discovered her musical vocation during a geological expedition in the desert of Northwest China. Here she had an epiphany and realised her future would be in singing, writing and playing the guitar.

The scientist still comes through in her work though, lending sharp, precise edges to otherwise impressionistic lyrics - and nature is the template for her experience.

"I love when I can write a lyric that brings a clear image to mind," she says. "That's kind of what I'm striving for.

"Somehow I hope I can gather my appreciation for nature and translate that through my songs, keeping a reference to the human aspect, the human experience."

Starts 8.30pm, tickets cost £8.50. Call 01273 647100.