One of the nice things about being even marginally aware of one's local music scene is the ability to watch as artists grow and evolve. This isn't something that we necessarily become privy to once a band has broken through that cultural membrane to find mainstream success. Sure, we got to watch decades of David Bowie trying on new styles and personas, but he was a person who had found his voice pretty quickly, and was just excited by the prospect of exploring its fetishes and limitations. Local musicians go through the same process in micro that Bowie did in macro, but without constant scrutiny, so you can find yourself surprised by a person whose work you've known for years.

As I initially began familiarizing myself with the Tacoma music scene, one of the first artists I encountered was a soon-to-be SOTA graduate named Colin Scott Reynolds. At the time, he was performing as Tree Roots in the Basement, and then I Low, and was cultivating a very 2000s indie-pop sound that was indebted to bands like Death Cab for Cutie and Bright Eyes. In the decade-plus since then, however, Reynolds has lived a whirlwind existence that found him moving to Brooklyn and crashing in apartment after apartment for years, while supporting himself as a busker on subway platforms. Along the way, he experimented with genres, dipping his toe in the waters of country, R&B, punk, ‘70s AM gold.

In the last couple years, Reynolds has served as frontman for alt-country stylists the Silver Dollars, drummer for both slippery math-rock act Etchings and crunchy alt-rockers Watermelon Sugar, and most recently as guitarist for the so-called "neon country" group BOLO. All along the way, though, Reynolds has held on to his roots as a troubadour, which is reflected in the upcoming release of his new solo LP, Tape 6 - The Royal We. As the title suggests, the album is being released on cassette, and will be celebrated with a release show on Friday.

The Royal We comes across like the culmination of years of self-exploration for Reynolds, while not quite sounding like anything he's done thus far. Fittingly, opening track "I Just Wanna Be Pretty" opens with a couple false starts: first, a winsome acoustic guitar, which Reynolds nixes in favor of a more wistful mode; then an aborted bit of beat-boxing, before settling into a synth-flecked bit of bedroom pop. The song concretizes the tone for the album, which delicately balances Reynolds' penchant for sincerity and tongue-in-cheek humor. Reynolds' voice, soulful as always, is pulled back a little more than it might be in a more flamboyant group.

Some of the track names feint at singer-songwriter journaling ("Fear & Trembling," "My Only Salvation," "Remember to Escape"), but this material is far removed from Reynolds' busker days. More than on any of his other projects, The Royal We has Reynolds leaning on electronica, creating an alternately lush and glitchy palette. "Lullaby 4 2.0," at just over one minute, is marked by off-kilter toy piano backing and Reynolds' voice taking on a more bombastic timbre, almost like Beirut's Zach Condon; the tune ends up sounding more like a dirge than a lullaby. Here and elsewhere, even though there's a fuller set of instrumentation than on his other solo albums, Reynolds sounds counter intuitively lonelier - adrift, yet optimistic.

One gets the impression that Colin Scott Reynolds is not done searching, that he may never be done with his search, locked in constant pursuit of his art. The elegiac "Nail Biting Commentary" ends abruptly with the sound of a slamming door, and then it's off to the next song. In life, I suspect that Reynolds doesn't slam doors, but he's not shy about moving forward.

Colin Scott Reynolds, w/ Valerie Warren, Rowan Carrick, guests TBA, Friday, Jan. 27, 8 p.m., $5-$10 suggested donation, Wingman Brewers, 509 Puyallup Ave., Tacoma, 253.256.5240, wingmanbrewers.com