When Leerone reaches out to new friends on MySpace, she spends time reading their profile, Googling their recommendations and personalizing her message. And as she's started promoting her forthcoming album, "Imaginary Biographies," she's been writing notes to industry contacts on customized stationery.

"My approach to everything is looking at it as quality vs. quantity," says Leerone, whose moniker is pronounced "lee-rone," a name that means "my song" in Hebrew. "It's time-consuming, but I've made some special connections."

One of those connections was with eclectic producer Christopher Fudurich, who has worked with everyone from Britney Spears to Nada Surf. The Los Angeles engineer recognized a sincerity in Leerone's piano-led chamber pop and assisted her in the studio with big and unusual arrangements.

"I grabbed pots and pans and bowls out of my kitchen and a box full of nails and screws and played them on a couple of tracks," Fudurich says. "There were no time constraints or expectations, so any direction could be explored and messed with until it felt right."

"Imaginary Biographies," set for soft self-release next month, is Leerone's first full-length set, following EPs in 2003 and 2005. She's in the midst of planning release parties in her hometown of L.A. and in New York.