Local singer-songwriter Nikki McCartney is at work on a new album with a new sound.

Singer-songwriter Nikki McCartney wasn’t born in Monterey County. Rather, she chose it as a base from which she has been pursuing her career as a recording and performing artist, engineer, composer and producer. These days, McCartney has gigs mostly in Los Angeles, San Francisco and the Seattle area, but local residents may remember her from events like the Monterey International Blues Festival in 2019.

McCartney’s first studio recording experience was co-writing and singing on Stu Heydon Blues Band’s 2020 album Shadowman. (Heydon is a Canadian hall-of-famer who now lives in Carmel.) A year later, she recorded her own first album, Wild Warriors. She did “the whole thing,” she says, from writing and recording (instruments and vocals), through producing to mixing and mastering. The reception was “pretty good,” McCartney says; she’s particularly proud to have done everything herself.

Songwriting came naturally to McCartney; she came from a family of West Coast musicians. Her process always starts with the music and falling in love with the sound. “Lyrics will find their way,” she says, adding that lyrics to her are sort of poetry, a stream of consciousness.

McCartney considers Janis Joplin, another woman with a guitar, the most talented artist in music history. Her other important inspiration is singer Ella Fitzgerald.

Currently she is working on another album, to be released in 2023. “Brace yourself for a new sound,” McCartney says.

For now, we can only sample the three singles from the album that have already been released – “Ready to Go,” “Intergalactic Love,” and, most recently, “Very Nice (Down By The River)”. All three songs are very different from Wild Warriors indeed, and the transition brings to mind another rock-and-blues girl going upbeat: Gwen Stefani’s 2003 solo debut Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Expect upbeat cuteness, lyrics about sour lemonade and falling in love, and pop sounds flirting with electronica.

There’s more to come. In the meantime, you can listen to McCartney jamming on Tuesdays at the Bulldog Pub in Monterey along with fellow musicians Arno Featherstone, Christopher Lopez and Steve Parmley.

NIKKI MCCARTNEY plays 6:30pm-10pm on Tuesdays at the Bulldog Pub, 611 Lighthouse Ave., Monterey. nikkimccartney.com.