She lets her fingers do the talking

KAKI KING is apologizing for eating sausage while she’s on the phone. Amid the din of clattering plates and the far-off bark of a Southern waitress, King (her first name is pronounced “khaki”) is taking a quick break at a Waffle House in central Kentucky. Between bites of breakfast, the 26-year-old Brooklyn-based guitar virtuoso is warmly reflecting on her latest work, and her position in the pop world.

It’s a fitting parallel: a shockingly gifted, stunningly complex performer who’s just slightly out of place in too simple a setting. Renowned for her bizarrely unique method of finger picking, fret-slapping and percussive thumping, King has been dubbed by fans and critics alike: an iconoclast, a prodigy and a guitar hero, even drawing critical comparisons to Jimi Hendrix.

Her first two albums -- “Everybody Loves You” (2003) and “Legs to Make Us Longer” (2004) -- gained the doe-eyed, pierced-lip brunet high-profile appearances on David Letterman’s and Conan O’Brien’s talk shows, but more notably launched her into the fawning gaze of “hard-core guitar nerd people,” as she lovingly describes her fans.

The briefest glimpse of the furrow-browed young woman at work is indeed enough to convert the curious into guitar geeks, as her playing involves intense focus, a considerable improvisation, and unorthodox technique.

Most often compared to the late guitar maverick Michael Hedges, King clangs out jangly notes and smacks bassy rhythms that edge her into jazz, funk and even flamenco territories. Grabbing the neck of her guitar from above, she swats at the strings rather than posing her hands into typical chord-based stances, while simultaneously jumping and plucking with her right hand to bounce out sounds in a whimsically classical fashion.

Her distinctive performance style, honed in the hollows of New York City subways, prompts her to suggest that it’s important to see her live “to fully comprehend what’s going on.” She also admits that her idiosyncratic approach to an otherwise ordinary instrument has created an image as “that girl that does that thing,” one that’s been difficult to break.

But with her freshly pressed release, “... Until We Felt Red,” King steps away from the heavily technique-based mold and wanders into a lusher landscape, exploring the layered textures of drums, bass, vibraphone and even fluegelhorn. Produced by Tortoise’s John McEntire, “... Until We Felt Red” was recorded last winter at his Soma Studios in Chicago, and although the intensely impassioned King affably concedes that she’s “prone to daily meltdowns and freakouts about the meaning of every single note,” she says that a lack of professional pressure freed her.

“When I made the record, I didn’t have a label, I didn’t have some A&R; guy standing over me freaking out about this or that. I really just did it by myself, with John ... and we had a grand time doing it.”

The result, as King blithely describes it, is “a semi-pop, semi-instrumental indie whatever-you-call-it album” that treats listeners not only to a banquet of musical implements, but also to several tracks with her own wispy vocals. A rolling collection of more pop-based numbers, the new album is composed of a lighter fabric than her arpeggio-heavy previous releases, with such tracks as “Yellowcake” and “You Don’t Have to Be Afraid” lightly embroidered with her soft soprano embellishments.

Will the addition of her voice make this work more accessible? King pauses, and with a near-audible shrug chuckles, “Accessibility is something I never worry about. Ultimately, I was just making music that I liked.”

KING has a demanding tour scheduled for this fall, performing almost daily, and for the first time with a backing band to help churn out her latest work’s complexities. But before she heads out with accompaniment, she’ll touch down solo in Los Angeles on Saturday for an intimate appearance at the highly regarded Night Vision concert series at the Museum of Contemporary Art. In its second year, MOCA’s series offer museum-goers live music and DJs as well as artistic workshops, spoken word gatherings and the giddy ambience of after-hours tours through the airy halls of the current Robert Rauschenberg exhibit, which stays open Saturdays until midnight.

For this pre-tour date at MOCA, King predicts a set heavy with the bent crooning of her lap steel guitar and likely laced with her timid, atmospheric vocals, which are pleasingly rhythmic by their own repetitious means.

But beyond her upcoming full-band tour this autumn, which includes a return to L.A. for a Sept. 25 show at the Knitting Factory, King is already thinking about the next chapter to follow it. “I have a vision of a new Kaki solo show and I think the MOCA might be the first little experiment into it.”

She starts to explain, but coyly stops herself, “Well, maybe I should just let you see for yourself.”

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Kaki King

What: Kaki King, performing as part of the Night Vision: MOCA After Dark series

Where: Arco Court, Museum of Contemporary Art, 250 S. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 9 p.m. Saturday

Price: Museum admission: $8 adults, $5 students and seniors

Info: (213) 621-1734; www.moca.org/nightvision