Singer-Storyteller: Josh Ritter

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WHEN JOSH RITTER plays the 9:30 Club on Dec. 1, it will mark his return to the 2007 moment and place when he felt like he truly arrived.

"That experience was just a tremendous," said Ritter, 33. "That was the first show in America really where I felt this is actually something — this is like a dream coming true. This was the first time we came to a place and it was sold out [fast], and it was a place in a town I hadn't played a lot. That place is important, but that night was really important."

National Public Radio recorded the show, and Ritter went on to release "Live at the 9:30 Club" as an EP on Record Store Day last year. (The Dec. 1 concert marks the start of a brief six-days-in-seven-nights tour with rootsy rockers The Low Anthem.)

It should be the last tour as support for the singer-songwriter's 2007 release, "The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter" — a sprawling, epic album featuring references to Joan of Arc, historic battles and Casey Jones. Ritter recently finished the follow-up, which the Idaho-native plans to release in the spring.

The as-yet-untitled album was produced by keyboardist Sam Kassirer at the same Maine farmhouse where he and Ritter teamed to record "Historical Conquests." For a guy who's made drastic leaps from album to album, it would seem Ritter's found a comfort zone.

"I really started to see the value of working with someone who could understand what I'm going for," Ritter said of working a second time Kassirer. "He's on the road with me. I don't have to tell him when I want something weirder. He's as weird as I am in that way. It's good to have somebody who wants to push in that direction."

But don't mistake comfort for complacency.

"I think it's actually a pretty huge difference, in sound and kind of in approach [to 'Historical Conquests,']" Ritter said. "Also in my philosophy about what I'm trying to achieve. I really want every record to be different because I need to feel that way — to feel like I'm moving forward and doing my job."

Where the lyrics on "Historical Conquests" found Ritter avoiding the personal intimacy of 2006's "The Animal Years" in favor of broader themes, the upcoming album explores another approach to his storytelling.

"This record has got a lot of big, long songs on it," Ritter said. "It's a real narrative-driven record, much less so then 'Conquests.' It took about a year to make. It's a really thought-out record. I think it kind of combines a lot of what 'Animal Years' had, in terms of intricacy, with the recording techniques Sam and I have come to learn."

In other words, Ritter explained, this new CD will be his Caravaggio — "Conquests" was his Jackson Pollock.

"It's a much more ornate record," Ritter said. "I think the last record to me — when I was making, and looking back — it was a spontaneous eruption. ... [This one] feels big, with every detail filled in."

And despite the care and time it took to make the album, Ritter's also had time to work on his first novel. Well, he's actually written "a couple here and there," but this is the first he will publish, he said.

"It's a whole new experience for me," Ritter said. "I definitely felt I could do it. It's funny, I'm a runner and I started to realize the whole experience of writing a novel is like training for a race. You can't train for it in one day. It's not like a song where you can write it in one day. It's a different experience, but its amazing experience."

Ritter wouldn't divulge the details of the book — all he'd say was it was a comedy in the vein of Scottish novelist Muriel Spark — but he did say it took a bit of a learning curve to adjust to novel-writing.

"It's all a matter of confidence," he said. "It's not necessarily harder in any way. ... I've found I have to be more comfortable with my awkwardness."

» 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW; with The Low Anthem, Tues., Dec. 1, 7 p.m., $20; 800-955-5566. (U St.-Cardozo)

Photo courtesy Tough Love Artist Management