Singer Robyn flies into the Bay Area

"No. Stop. This really isn't sounding good. But I think I know what's wrong. Let's try it again."

At a Bay Area nightclub a few weeks ago, an elfin but brassy blonde with an asymmetrical haircut was putting her backing musicians through their soundcheck paces, repeatedly tweaking the mix on a single song, "Dream On." The sound man was frustrated. The band was getting antsy. But Swedish singer Robin Carlsson, who bills herself simply as Robyn, pressed on for several more takes, calm, cool, collected. Finally satisfied, she jumped offstage beaming, a woman in complete control of her surroundings.

"Dream On" was a last-minute addition to the stateside release of Robyn's eponymous debut, already a chart-topping smash overseas. So forgive her for being a tad finicky, she pleads. This was one of the first times it was played live.

It wasn't the 28-year-old vocalist's first time on the road, however. At 6 months old, she was taken on tour with her nomadic parents, who ran a Russian-influenced theater group that constantly crisscrossed Europe. She would continue to accompany them until she entered school at age 7.

"It's hard to say exactly what it was that inspired me or affected me in what I do now," says the singer, who performs Friday at Bimbo's in San Francisco. "But the whole experience of just being around my parents and the whole theater company, and just watching them be creative together? I think that influenced me a lot, just

The lesson would prove useful in years to come.

Rather than pursue drama — she said she found acting pretentious — Robyn started singing.

At 14, she was discovered in her native Stockholm by the chanteuse Meja; a year later, she was ensconced in a studio with superstar Svengali Max Martin; a year after that, she was touring the globe behind her Top 10 hit "Show Me Love."

She barely survived the experience.

"I had this very naive idea of what the music industry was gonna be like, and it was nothing like I expected it to be," she shrugs. "Because I'd been on the road with my parents, I kind of thought that I was going to do what they did — play my songs for people, then go on to the next city."

She was in for a rude awakening, via a full year of radio/in-store track dates, culminating in a proposed tour with the Backstreet Boys, which she declined.

As soon as her dance-pop career had begun, it was over. Chagrined, she returned home and considered going back to college.

That's when she got an ego boost from some music-scene pals. She'd written what she believed to be a decent song, "Who's That Girl," but she had no idea what to do with it.

Enter Swedish art-rock duo the Knife, which gave her pointers on the D.I.Y. method they employed. They would go on to collaborate on the track, which made it onto "Robyn."

She began co-writing in earnest with Teddybears guitarist Klas Ahlund, and by the time she had an album's worth of material, she'd made a bold parental-inspired decision: Why sign with another major label when she could form her own imprint?

Backed by a team of three, Konichiwa Records was literally launched out of her kitchen.

"And I wouldn't say that it was difficult, but it took a lot of time and preparation," says the newly-minted CEO. "But that's the way that I grew up — my parents had their own theater company, and I was also encouraged by the right people, friends and folks I worked with who knew about the business. So I started to gather info, and the more I learned, the more it seemed like Konichiwa was possible."