Germany has been something of a home-away-from-home for Rae Spoon.

The Canadian transgendered experimental/alt-folk singer/songwriter spent some time in Berlin late last year, where he teamed up with sound artist (and friend) Alexandre Decoupigny for a collaboration called Worauf Wartest Du?/What Are You Waiting For? as part of an international public-art competition titled U10: from here to the imaginary and back again. Of the 300 applications received, eight projects (including Spoon and Decoupgny's) were selected to explore Berlin's underground as a parallel world, both real and imaginary. (U10 refers to a line of Berlin's U-Bahn subway system which was originally conceived in the 1930s but never completed.)

What Are You Waiting For? serves as a musical examination of the hopes, ambitions, dreams and desires of U-Bahn commuters.

"It was really fun and interesting to work on it," says the soft-spoken Spoon over the phone from his home in Montreal. "It changed my perception of songwriting and collaboration."

Much like Spoon's much-lauded (and Polaris Music Prize long-listed) 2008 solo album SuperiorYouAreInferior, What Are You Waiting For? is a hybrid of alt-folk and glitchy electronics - but the record takes the juxtaposition further (think found sounds, spoken-word samples - in English and German - and other assorted sonic oddities, backed with an acoustic guitar and Spoon's ethereal, feather-light vocals). It's part arty noise project, part electro rave-up.

An experimental piece on the Berlin U-Bahn may seem like an unlikely venture for a guy who was once a country artist living in Calgary - but then, Spoon, 29, is a much different musician than he was when he began his career in the early 2000s. Germany, incidentally, has a lot to do with that transformation. Spoon took up residence there prior to the recording of SuperiorYouAreInferior, and it had a profound impact on him.

"When I first met Alex, I told him I was a folk singer and there's not a translation for that in German," he recalls. "Folk music is what your grandparents would listen to - it's more traditional. We discussed what 'folk music' meant, and I mentioned that, to me, folk music - like, being from the people - is probably closer to hip hop. He startled me by saying in Germany, it's techno or electronic music. That got me thinking about (electronic music) in a different way, you know, using the computer as an instrument, not just writing it off as an easy thing."

It also got Spoon thinking of his own music in a different way, inspiring him to ditch his banjo for a laptop.

"I was playing country and bluegrass before, and I was tired of that genre, so I decided that (SuperiorYouAreInferior) would the last album I would make," he says. "I was actually really nervous about releasing it; I worked super hard on it. I thought I'd try it one more time, and if it works in a way I can grow with, then great. Which is what happened, which is good."

Happily, Rae has more records in his future. Rejuvenated by the risks taken on SuperiorYouAreInferior, Spoon plans to move even further out of folk territory on his next album, which is due out sometime this year.

"My next record has even more electronic elements in it. It's going to be called Love is a Hunter. I'm calling it 'survival pop,'" he says with a laugh.

"In the queer scene, there's this sort of constant adolescent phase," he continues. "You go out and try to find yourself, and there's these structures that are in place to support you and help you, but they often fail. That's what this record is about."

RAE SPOON
Jan. 30, 8 p.m., West End Cultural Centre
w/ Geoff Berner