John Vanderslice’s songs have been compared to novels, since his lyrics quickly establish storylines with narrators caught in scenes with dilemmas that guide their lives, for better or worse. He’s sung from the perspective of a Guantanamo guard, a father identifying his son at the morgue, a lover whose partner has kept him from suicide and a would-be anti-government activist.

The singer-guitarist adds intrigue to his songs by imbuing the storylines with a deep level of ambiguity. In “Coming and Going on Easy Terms,” it’s hard to tell if the narrator’s son is actually alive, as he keeps saying, or if he is in denial. When Vanderslice sings in “Dead Slate Pacific” that “the only thing standing between/me and that long rope over a carpenter’s beam/was you,” it isn’t clear if that should be interpreted as loving intimacy or the scariest example of co-depence—or whether the object of his affection is a woman or a prescription bottle.

While vagueness can often be the result of first drafts or a novice, Vanderslice takes this approach intentionally. “Even when I’m writing about myself in some way, there has to be some unstable part of the narrator for me, or there’s no tension in the song,” he says. “That’s part of what I’m hoping that I put in the song or [that] I’m aiming for: that the narrator himself is not reliable. So there is another layer of tension where you have to wonder, ‘Is this language even accurate?’”

This willingness to puzzle listeners is nothing new to Vanderslice. An irreverent prankster, he once caused a media sensation by saying his song “Bill Gates Must Die” generated a lawsuit and harassment from Microsoft, which he later admitted was a hoax. (The song was less about killing the billionaire and more about a pedophile who blamed his internet addiction on the computer magnate.) But that event occurred seven years ago in the wake of Vanderslice’s first solo album. In the ensuing years, his gift for storytelling and sonically unorthodox pop music—created at his all-analogue Tiny Telephone studios in San Francisco—has created one of the more intriguing catalogs in independent music.

Vanderslice released Emerald City, his sixth album, in July. The title references the promised land from The Wizard of Oz, but that allusion takes a backseat to the current political scene. “In the foreground is the Green Zone in Baghdad and the illusory and absurd nature of having a heavily fortified coalition area in the middle of total anarchy,” Vanderslice says, matter-of-factly. “I think that’s so absurd and beautiful. People inside, in the State Department and the military, call it the Emerald City.”

In L. Frank Baum’s story, of course, the Emerald City is deceptively run by a man who turns out to be a humbug, in the words of the Scarecrow. The parallel isn’t lost on Vanderslice. “The irony is that it’s still a source of power, just like America is the source of power,” he says. “Even though there is a scam going on, it still has immense and almost complete power over everything.”

Despite his opinions about our government’s quagmire, Vanderslice is not the type to whack listeners over the head with his opinions. In fact he’s more likely to sketch a scene that leaves listeners wondering what is really going on. “Kookaburra” opens the album with a scene of Armageddon, which could be a depiction of September 11 or an attack on the Emerald City of the Middle East. In “The Parade,” Vanderslice could be a terrorist meticulously repeating details about how to act during the event (“Be calm/be quiet” is a recurring line) before causing a disruption, or he might be bored and just hoping to sneak away before it ends. In the bridge, he adds a further twist to his character by singing: “I got steel dust in a vial/and anodized tiles/in my pocket from Tower Two.”

The album closes with a keyboard-driven ballad, “Central Booking,” which paints a picture of two lovers kept apart by immigration and red tape. Unlike most of Vanderslice’s material, this song sprung out of his true-life relationship with his French girlfriend and their attempts to get her an American visa. “She’s here now, and we have resolved a lot of that, but we’re still dealing with some issues,” Vanderslice says. “I’d say most of the record was written under the cloud that we were not going to be together.”

In an effort to get her to the US, Vanderslice took several trips to the State Department in Paris, something he could only pull off by coordinating them with his European tours. Still, the visits were loaded with tension, especially when Homeland Security took over appointments he was to have with the State Department. “If you’re like me—extremely frustrated with American politics—something like that can spiral you into an absolute vengeful cycle of anger and disappointment,” he says.

Through this ordeal, the political nature of his songs never came up as a point of contention. “I said, ‘I’m a nice guy and I pay my taxes and live in San Francisco, but I’m thinking of moving to Orange County because San Francisco’s filled with too many progressive liberals,’” he says dryly. “‘And I’m not comfortable with all the protests.’”

As he composed in this state of suspense, Vanderslice took a new approach to making the album. His previous efforts featured a revolving door of musicians, with Tiny Telephone engineer Scott Solter acting as a collaborator. For Emerald City, Vanderslice recorded the nine songs with his permanent touring band, keyboardist Ian Bjornstad, bassist David Roecker and drummer David Douglas. Solter produced and helped out with tape loops, guitars and percussion. The process makes the music “more coherent, a little terser,” Vanderslice says. “When I’m recording on my own, I tend to like exploring little alleys and cul de sacs. When it’s more of a collaborative process, everyone’s putting ideas together in the room and it really changes what happens.”

Vanderslice says that when he writes a song, he has a lyrical plotline before a melody, which he considers a shortcoming. “I can’t sit down with a guitar and hum lines and come up with a song,” he says. “It’s almost predicated on an idea of a song all the way through. And that’s actually slowed me down from writing material. So I don’t think it’s a pure form of songwriting at all.”

Regardless of how he does it, the end result consistently justifies the means.

John Vanderslice plays September 29 at the Buffalo Icon, 391 Ellicott Street (842-0167, buffaloicon.com), with Bishop Allen supporting. This is an over-21 show, and doors open at 7pm. Tickets are $12 at the door, $10 presale (Icon box office, tickets.com). This is the last show at the Icon, which is closing.