Nena Anderson's full of surprises

We talk by phone, Nena Anderson and I, about her winter vegetable garden. She’s been working in her yard, getting ready for the coming cold front. A single mother, Anderson works as a designer, a writer, an artist, and a musician. “I like to keep busy,” she says. This understatement may explain her peripatetic approach to music as well, for Anderson is multigenre. She fronts her own group, a rootsy band she calls the Mules, and is equally at home in front of an indie-rock group or a straight-ahead jazz trio or a country-music combo. “I like to keep it mixed up so the people who come out to see me won’t know.”

I ask which of the Nenas will show up at the Soda Bar. She laughs. “I like to keep people guessing.” Then she offers that she will be performing a full set of originals. We talk about the sense of dread and yearning she brought to her opening set at a recent record-release show. “I’ll do something like that,” she says, “but maybe a little more...” she pauses, searching for the right word, then says, “...pretty?”

Then again, Anderson, who is 39, says her songs are not happy as a rule. “I love blues. That’s the basis of where most of my music comes from.” But no modern blues. She likes rural gospel songs and farm hollers; plantation blues, in other words. “But half of the songs on my album I played first as rock songs, then later as jazz songs. I try to write songs that translate into different genres so I can do whatever I’m feeling at the moment.” Born and raised in Encinitas, Anderson likes to challenge her listeners’ minds. “My music? I want you to love it or hate it,” she says. No gray area. “Creating a reaction is very important to me.”

Anderson will perform a solo set. Whitehorse also appears.

Nena Anderson: Soda Bar, Wednesday, November 28, 8 p.m., 619-255-7224. $8 advance/$10 door.