Sia [ tickets ] Furler packs a fascinating mix of thoughtful, ethereal pop music and cabaret humor, making her current club tour a breath of fresh air.

Despite kudos for her solo efforts abroad, Sia's name (she's billed with only the single name) in the US is mostly associated with her noteworthy vocal contributions to two tracks on Zero 7's 2001 release "Simple Things." On the album's "Destiny" and "Distractions," the band's slinky, trip-hop and soul-pop rhythms and thickly textured arrangements gave Sia's soulful vocals a runway from which to take off.

On stage Monday (4/3) at West Hollywood, CA's Troubadour, Sia stripped back some of the lush studio backdrop of those songs and let her voice do the work, and it soared. The lady has some serious pipes.

Along with the Zero 7 material, Sia showcased several songs from her current release, "Colour the Small One," a far more lyric-laden affair than "Simple Things," and a very solid effort, drawing local airplay on Los Angeles' alt-rock station as well as the influential NPR outlet KCRW, a longtime launching pad for eclectic artists.

"Don't Bring Me Down" and "Sunday" carried over into a live setting particularly well, along with "Blow It All Away," from her first solo release. A careful reading of the Ray Davies song "I Go To Sleep" played close to the Pretenders' 1981 single and called out some similarities between Sia's softer voice and Chrissie Hynde's.

Still, "Colour The Small One" is a pretty sober set of songs, making Sia's hyperactive and delightfully profane stage presence particularly entertaining. Echoes of "Divine Madness"-era Bette Midler emerged as she went into little happy dances in response to cheers from the crowd after completing moody, introspective songs and described life on the road, including a set of frat-style nicknames given to the band and crew for the tour.

To further underscore that this was no sleepy recital of singer/songwriter angst, Sia had the crew hand out old movie-style 3D glasses to the crowd late in the set, taking advantage of a lighting setup arranged to produce heart shapes when the glasses were worn.

A frantic Sia capped the night by rushing to the stage perhaps 10 minutes after the show ended, calling anyone who could hear her voice back in to watch her sing Happy Birthday to her guitarist, an occasion she'd forgotten to mark earlier in the evening.

It would have been a great set even without the Sia's madcap antics, but those who managed to score tickets to her long-sold-out two-night stand in West Hollywood got a whole lot of show in the bargain.