From jazz to roots to indie folk, singer-songwriter Sarah Pedinotti is continuing to evolve.

The Saratoga Springs native’s latest band, Railbird, might confuse some who haven’t been following her career too closely. The group’s rootsy storytelling and organic instrumentation moves her further from the jazz she grew up singing at her parents’ club, One Caroline Street. But according to Pedinotti, her own songwriting has never really fit into the jazz genre.

“Especially people who are jazz people, like scholars, they wouldn’t actually call what I was writing jazz,” Pedinotti said during a recent interview in Saratoga Springs. “It always had a storytelling, sort of folk quality, and obviously a blues quality too, but roots music.”

As her music evolved, Pedinotti, primarily a pianist, realized that her songs required more string-based instrumentation. She soon found players who gravitated toward her songs. Railbird features two other members of the former Sarah Pedinotti Band — drummer Chris Carey and guitarist Chris Kyle — along with guitarist James Gascoyne and bassist Ben Davis.

Musical evolution

“When I was 16, 17, writing these songs, everyone around me were jazz musicians, so that’s how the music was being interpreted,” Pedinotti said. “But if you had different players, it would have been called something else. That’s kind of how I look at it, but it’s funny to me because people are like, ‘Oh my God, it’s suddenly so different!’ But really, in my mind, it’s always sort of been that way; it’s just a change in instrumentation and arranging, and of course an evolution in the writing too, because as you grow, you just change.”

The group’s music continues to evolve with its latest limited edition EP, “The Flower From California,” which will be released at a performance Friday night at The Parting Glass. The bill also features Ballston musician Matthew Loiacono, whose “Penny Riddle” EP will also see release this night, and northeast indie folk troupe Cuddle Magic. This same lineup plays the Lizard Lounge in Boston the next night, as well.

“The Flower From California” follows up Railbird’s self-titled debut, released last year. That record came in at number eight on Billboard’s editors’ Top 10 for 2008. It’s not the first time Pedinotti has received attention from Billboard — since 2003, her albums have regularly made the magazine’s year-end lists, thanks largely to Billboard writer Thom Duffy.

“We’ve been lucky; we’ve got a fan there,” Pedinotti said. “Every year he sort of checks in and sees what we’re doing, and if he likes it, he’ll put something in for his year in review.”

Group effort

The new EP finds Railbird growing as a collaborative unit. While the majority of the songs are still Pedinotti’s, Carey, Kyle and Pedinotti collaborated for the first time on the EP track “Looking Back.” The song has since become a favorite of the band’s.

“It just turns out that I do have a lot of material too, so the majority of stuff is usually mine, but I see the future as being more collaborative, for sure,” Pedinotti said. “Everybody in the band is a writer, really. They all compose their own parts, or we write them together, and the drummer, Chris Carey, actually, he’s really discovering that he likes songwriting a lot, so he’s writing his own stuff sort of separately from the band.”

Railbird rehearsed and recorded the material on “The Flower From California” during an intensive week-long session at Carey’s girlfriend’s parents’ vacant house. According to Pedinotti, the collaborative energy of these sessions helped to focus the music.

“It was sort of our dream to have a time where we could all just work on music, and we worked it out in our schedules so that we had at least one week,” Pedinotti said. “Everybody has to make money and have jobs, so it’s hard to just give up that much of your time, but it was such a blessing to have us all focus on one thing, and we realized how much we can really get done when we collaborate like that.”

Recording techniques

The extended time also allowed for some experimentation in the recording process. Gascoyne, who also plays with electronic group Le RUBB, brought some of the approach of that band to the recordings. The group used samples to loop drums and recorder lines, adding an electronic element to the music while still retaining an organic feel.

While the EP and previous full-length are self-released efforts, Railbird is looking at options for signing to a larger indie label for its next album. The group is hoping to do another “lock yourself up in a cabin scenario” to hone material.

“It was so rewarding for us, creatively,” Pedinotti. “It was a good experiment. It was only one week, but we’re like, ‘Imagine if we could do that for a month.’ Or even two weeks, it would be so sweet.”