Sally Seltmann, the woman known as the Melbourne folk act New Buffalo, lives in a world of to and fro. She tastes celebrity, runs from it, then returns.

"It's weird," she says. "I think I am sort of shy but also not shy in a way. I can write quite personal songs and feel very comfortable being on stage and having people look at me singing them but at the same time I am a little bit shy."

She giggles nervously, a sound somewhere between a chortle and a gasp. It is a shy giggle, to block up the awkwardness of silence. "I think [performing] makes me feel more comfortable as a person ... It feels more normal, for me, for people to hear my songs or know who I am [now]. It's really weird."

Before recording her latest album, Somewhere, Anywhere, Seltmann left the city for a quiet house in Torquay on Victoria's south coast. She was not sure what she wanted to record and it was not until she found the isolation of a backyard studio that she realised. Yet as she creeps away, she returns: from the Great Ocean Road, she has moved back to St Kilda.

"We tried the sea change and it was beautiful and great and I got that album out of it ... it's beautiful, the country and living by the sea - but I feel like I really love watching humans and how they interact. There's something nice about being in the city and you feel a bit anonymous but you tend to look around at everyone."

Seltmann's career is at odds with her personality. When she started performing, she chose the name New Buffalo to take the focus off herself - to confuse people, suggest she may be part of a group, protect her privacy. In the past, she has refused requests from journalists wanting to come to her home but now allows the occasional photographer in. She plays piano so she can hide from audiences, though with songs that leave her utterly open to them.

"I just think I was unconfident. I just didn't know whether people would like my music. ... [But] it's like you just learn to detach yourself from thinking, 'This is a song that I wrote and it's about me,' and you just think, 'This is a thing - who cares if anyone likes it or doesn't like it,' " she says of the transition. "There are so many people in the world, there has got to be someone in the world who would like it, so just do your thing and don't worry about what people think."

That was, of course, until her record appeared on the gossip website of the celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, with a personal recommendation. "Listen to this: Like Honey For the Soul," Hilton titled the entry. The blogger is widely regarded as the celebrity machine's foremost commentator.

Then there is the song: 1234, sung by its Canadian co-writer Feist. Its video pictured Feist in a sequinned jumpsuit and has been used in ads for iPod and eBay. Despite its success, Seltmann says she felt it was not her own - she appears eager not to be the centre of attention.

Indeed, Seltmann has made a career of diverting attention. During the promotion of her first album she answered questions about her husband, Avalanches member Darren Seltmann, and is now promoting this album talking about Feist.

And she has fielded almost as many questions about guest vocalist Beth Orton as she did about herself. "I told the story about how she came over and we served really bad noodles [a fair bit]."

Save for the giggles, she is also ready to talk about herself. She has, after all, said so much in song. "Everyone has the same kind of feelings, regardless of what sort of jobs they do. So I think I shouldn't be frightened of letting people see more of a personal side of me."

Erik Jensen