Kevin Bronson on January 7th, 2009

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If not a force of nature, Theresa Andersson is a force of technology.

The Swedish-born, New Orleans-based songstress caused jaws to drop and hearts to swoon Tuesday night in the first of her four appearances this month at the Hotel Cafe. Owing perhaps to the early set time, the room was only one-quarter full; you had the feeling you were witnessing something really special. Here’s why:

Andersson is one-woman army. She makes her music by using a vast array of pedals (“My band,” she called them) to loop her sonics — I’m probably missing something, but Tuesday she played guitar, fiddle (plucked and bowed), floor toms, a vibraphone, tambourine and dulcimer, and, making use of two mics, she looped her vocals too. About the only sounds she didn’t turn into music were the audience’s gasps.

The spectacle of how her music was shaped nearly upstaged the tunes themselves,

but if you averted your eyes long enough to allow only your ears to work, her songs wielded their own sensory clout. She drifts effortlessly from pop chanteuse to gospel choir to dirty-soul diva, and her vocals (and phrasing) can stop time.

And did I mention she triggers all those pedals with her bare feet?

Wow.

||| Live: Andersson performs Jan. 16, 20 and 30 at the Hotel Cafe and appears on Conan O’Brien on Feb. 4.

||| Download: “Na Na Na (Empty Heart)”

||| Watch: Her homemade video for “Na Na Na,” made in her kitchen, where she recorded her album “Hummingbird, Go!”