Autumn is a transitional time, a vivid trip towards the end of the year that brings people from all points in all areas of the globe to the Northeast region. These travelers coast up and down otherwise nondescript highways simply to see the colorful byproduct of the changing seasons.

Singer-songwriter Chris Pureka understands.

“Fall is my favorite season,” she states from under the frayed brim of her Camel baseball cap, and cracks a smile that makes it seem like she just got a little happier simply thinking about it. This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with her work. Her previous release, 2004’s Driving North, was a crispy-aired collection of songs that sounded like they could come from no place else than Pureka’s native New England.

Similar to other wonders of local nature, Pureka herself could seemingly come from no place else. She grew up in Connecticut, where she became interested in music in her teens, after being “really into sports.” She studied biology at Wesleyan University in Middletown, a Connecticut town where classical music blasts from the tops of its stately Main Street buildings at midnight.

It was in college that Pureka began to find her voice as a performer, although maybe not a singer straight off. “At first, I didn’t really focus on the vocals; there were two instrumental tracks on that record,” she explains, referring to her initial demo EP, which she recorded in June 2001 via a guerilla “lock-the-bedroom-door” recording session. She has experienced a great amount of evolution as an artist in the past five years, but the base remains the same. Her first recording was described by poet Alix Olson as “gritty tunes charged with charm, toe-tapping poetry, and a sexy dose of wit.” The grit, charm, and wit are all still here, coupled with a relatively newfound voice and a prodigious talent on the guitar. While a night at the Iron Horse in her current habitat of Northampton is the closest to a home game that Pureka gets, she receives vast amounts of support in Cambridge’s Harvard Square, where she often challenges capacity fire codes in tightly packed places like Club Passim.

Last spring, Pureka went on a national tour to far off places that most local musicians only visit on vacation, if ever. The singer, her two guitars, and the occasional touring companions have traversed the nation. She regards it as one of the most important things that a performer can invest their time and money in. The key is being a smart investor, which Pureka clearly is.

“Every night you’re not playing is an extra night in a hotel room,” she counsels, rubbing her finger and thumb together in the universal sign for “money.” A model of touring efficiency, Pureka plays as much as possible, cutting down on the idle time. There are no romanticized visions of the road-weary artist taking out her guitar in a lonesome truck-stop to write a tune about how road-weary she might be: “When you do get your alone time, you want to chill out.” While she writes almost exclusively from experience with some of those experiences being of the on-the-road variety, she simply takes things in and brings them home. “Then I hash it out,” she says, always ready for new material.

One thing that immediately strikes a person about Pureka is an air of authenticity and honesty. Relaxed and affable, she puts up no walls and seems genuinely interested in her surroundings and those around her. She asks questions and listens to the answer carefully before offering a response. While her speaking voice is actually quite different from her singing voice, both are colored by a certain quick wit and warm personality that draws people in, whether she is singing or talking.

Audiences are helpless to resist. Often, performers will take the stage concerned about whether or not the audience will enjoy the set. When Pureka takes the stage, the tables seem turned, as if the audience is in a state of default enchantment that borders on delirium; Pureka could instruct them to do anything and they’d probably rush over each other to get it done.

Whether you draw screaming teenaged girls or long-faced goth kids, every artist has a demographic, a section of people that always seem to get it. “I definitely get a lot more women in my audiences,” explains Pureka. She thinks for a second and then elaborates, “I think my crowd is people who are like my age; my kind of life style.” This, of course, is nice — an audience wants to identify with the performer, but there is more to Pureka than a lifestyle or a musical style. “I prefer to have a wider appeal,” she decides, “I don’t want to be pigeonholed.”

The four-letter “F” word comes up a lot. “I tend to not want to be pigeonholed into folk singing,” she says. While “folk” is not a dirty word to Pureka, she can understand how some hear the term. “Some of my music is super-folky, but a lot of what I listen to is indie rock,” she says. And she does look a little not-so-folk at the moment, with her wide-linked chain necklace and necktie section pinned around her wrist. She thinks of her new album, Dryland, and becomes immediately excited for her musical cause. “This new album is like a spread; some songs are super folky ...” she looks around, almost furtively, before continuing with the bomb: “... some songs are kind of more punk rock or indie — I’d like to continue to walk that line,” she opines, concluding, “I really like being involved in both of those communities and I don’t want to pick one.”

Chris Pureka is capable of pulling a big crowd. When asked if she thinks people are coming for the music or more for part of the social scenery of it all, she grimaces. While it is clear that her audience is a thoughtful, listening audience, there is a small percent of non-listeners that would give any artist fits. “I get into some trouble,” she sighs. “I played at some pride festivals, places where people end up coming to something just for a social reason,” she explains. “That is something that I am trying to get away from doing exclusively. I really want to try to play more music venues.”

There is no question that people from all walks of life appreciate Pureka and her music. For starters, she has an independent fan site. Pictures, news, even guitar tablature and lyrics are posted at www.chrispureka.net, a site managed not by Pureka’s manager, best friend, or little sister, but a person named Matt Haven from — where else — Ann Arbor, Michigan. “I wanted to do something to support her music and hopefully encourage others to do the same,” states Haven via email. “The internet is one of the best places to find good new artists,” says the webmaster, who found Pureka through an online message board. “I just wanted to be a part of that for an artist I really love.”

Chris Pureka is appreciative, and has even checked the tablature (“It’s mostly right,” she says). The website isn’t some sort of Times New Roman, busted-link, college computer class project either; chrispureka.net is a fully functioning and well-attended website with around 300 posts on the message board from people across the country who share an appreciation for all things Pureka. Many of them are passionate on the subject, even posting their own recorded cover versions of their favorite Pureka songs. That must be what the tablature is for.

Tabbing out a guitar part written by the quick-fingered guitarist cannot be easy. She flies over the fretboard at times, utilizing rich, widely spaced chord voicings, peppered with quick hammer-ons, trills, and other such devices that morph a simple chord into a bona fide guitar part. “I’ve never liked songs with just plain chords,” she muses, working her fingers around an invisible guitar. Her case is full of tricks, including “the selective capo,” which only holds five out of six strings, allowing either the first or sixth string to ring out unaltered. “That probably screws up the tab site,” she smiles mischievously. She also switches from pick to fingerstyle and back again all in the space of the same song, palming the pick like a skilled magician, then reintroducing it into her playing without missing a note.

Chris Pureka plays the guitar with such a loose, natural style that it seems second nature to her — like breathing, only less voluntary. Her connection to her instrument is almost unparalleled by any local acoustic guitarist; she throws her pick through the strings and it’s like wind through autumn branches. She sings and it’s a satisfying crunch and rustle of golden leaves in the same wind. Nature is a pervasive element in her entire body of work, and the art lies in the ability to be totally natural with no artificial preservatives, sweeteners, or anything else from her former life as a biologist. Pureka’s sentiments are her own outlook, formed into poetry and assigned meter and melody.

Pureka does not make up stories; she simply shares her own. “I think in general I write a lot from my immediate situation,” explains the lanky singer, lazily flicking a straw around with her long fingers. “I write a lot about my surroundings.” She thinks for a second, trying to find the right way to put it. As expected, she finds it: “I don’t make things up.”

The unabashed Pureka truly welcomed the world into her life for the first time on Driving North, which she describes as a break-up record. Always helpful, she also provided a roadmap to Driving North in the form of a lyric sheet. She plans to do the same with Dryland, half-joking that she feels a little ripped off when she opens up a compact disc and finds only a one-panel insert with a few credits. She wants to make sure people “get” her music — Pureka wants listeners, not bystanders. “I don’t like playing in bars very much,” she confirms. “It’s not ‘background’ music.”

Perhaps she wouldn’t care if her music wasn’t so sharing, so intensely autobiographical. With Dryland, Pureka is expanding past the living-with-the-breakup record to a simple living record. “I’m going to explore a little more of that territory in my new record,” says Pureka, referring to her new release. “It’s going to be a little more perspective and a little less self-centered,” she explains.

Dryland continues the evolution of Pureka, in both lyrical content and musical arrangement. “Stylistically, it’s a transition ... it makes sense as a follow-up record to the other one,” explains the artist. Described as “more produced,” among other things, it marks the first use of piano on any Pureka recording. While she has expanded some values, she has reined others in as well, creating a record more ornate in some ways, and simpler in others. “It’s evolved to a pretty good place,” she posits. “The new record focuses a little bit more on songwriting as a craft, and not specifically any other thing.” While she has simplified some aspects of her songwriting, the tablature scribes of chrispureka.net still need to sharpen up their transcription pencils: “There are a few tunes with pretty complicated guitar parts,” she smiles, still working the straw, forks, knives, spoons, pens — anything available — with her long, nimble fingers.

Recording the new album was a rewarding experience for Pureka. “I definitely think about all the really positive things that happened,” she says, before adding that she will try some things differently for the next one. Instead of using the same core band for the entire record, different players were brought in for different parts, in an effort to create a customized musical fit for each song. While this brings a natural and organic feel to the song, Pureka, ever the perfectionist, still sees the value of rehearsal.

One particularly positive thing was the revisiting of a song she had written in her college days. Pureka took this song from the past, and reworked it, writing a few new parts here, adding a vocal line there, and it has become one of her favorite songs on the new record.

It seems clear that Pureka is not the same artist she was in the early days. Her work is a living example of something she may have studied in the labs back at Wesleyan: a natural system in progress. “I definitely take in what’s happening around me; I tend to notice things like the weather and the season and they work themselves into the songwriting,” says the eternally in-tune Pureka. She is not simply a figurehead for a lifestyle or genre; she is an artist who creates her art almost without thinking.

Natural progress and evolution cannot be halted or faked. Pureka’s evolution as an artist is like a deliciously unending autumn, where the colors just keep getting richer, garnering more and more attention from passersby until everyone is hopelessly intrigued, enchanted, and engaged by the natural New England phenomenon known as Chris Pureka.

www.chrispureka.net