Duncan Sheik, Duncan Sheik

I've told Dino, a couple times, that his voice and some of his songwriting reminds me of Duncan Sheik. He usually shrugs it off, but I mean it as a compliment. I think Sheik is overlooked as an important singer/songwriter because his singles�namely his 1996 hit "Barely Breathing"�aren't as substantial as the rest of his work. That's surely what kept me from immediately liking him when he arrived on the scene eight years ago. When I first heard "Barely Breathing" I wasn't impressed; it was hard for me to appreciate its subtle instrumentation and smart vocal melodies during a 3-minute video clip on MTV. It was as good as any other commercial radio staple at the time, but there was nothing particularly remarkable about it. But several months later, I heard "She Runs Away" on the radio, and that's what hooked me: the plaintive ascending vocals and slide guitar of the chorus, the poetic lyrics, the articulate acoustic guitar. That Sheik would choose to release such a melancholy song as a single, much less open an album with it, still surprises me. But if you listen to the other songs on his debut album, you'll understand that there weren't exactly any serious contenders for a more upbeat or cheery song to kick things off. No, this is not a party album, not by a long shot.

I finally got the album after a friend whose taste I trusted unconditionally recommended it to me, telling me he was sure I'd appreciate it given my penchant for "gloomy, David Sylvian stuff." The first snowfall of the season wasn't long afterwards, and its timing couldn't have been more appropriate. That's how I became ensconced in this album, these ten brooding, sometimes agonizingly honest ballads. Because they essentially are all ballads, even "Barely Breathing" sounds sad, if the mood is just right. The David Sylvian comparison is apt when you consider Sheik's career arc: his music has been in plenty of films, he's had relative success with singles, and he has considerable freedom within a major-label environment. He's always been just short of universal recognition and acclaim, and perhaps he, like Sylvian, prefers it that way. And I think he's never really broken out of the gate because his songs are sad and subtle, they take time to absorb, and they're not for the weak of heart. They are contemplative, not palliative; engaging and not escapist.

So that's how I wintered late 1997, holing up in my tiny dorm room with a perpetually malfunctioning thermostat in a building whose architectural style could best be described as Riot-Proof Institutional, watching the snow fall in a bleak Wisconsin sky from my third-floor window, wrapping myself up in these songs that served as an adequate blanket during what, honestly, was a terribly depressing and unremarkable period in my young life. That winter was particularly disturbing because I didn't have a great deal to be that depressed about�I just was. So maybe it wasn't the best idea for me to be listening to songs with lyrics like you say this is living, you feel so alive / well you know, everything dies. But "Reasons For Living", along with most of the other songs on this album, exists on that elusive and ultimately cathartic threshhold between despair and redemption. The gentle dub rhythms under the fading piano at the end of "Reasons For Living" echo the universal heartbeat that Sheik sings about in the chorus, and then "Days Go By" begins, the low strings winding around his delicate acoustic guitar. Pianissimo meditations like this one, "November", and the album closer "Little Hands" are priceless because they're nakedly sincere without exploiting our compassion, effectively symphonic but never fulsome, and evocative but not maudlin. Despite the lush production, many of these songs are both instrumentally and emotionally stark, "November" being the best example. Ever the hopeless romantic, Sheik infuses even the album's weepiest creation with faint glimmers of hope in a last-ditch attempt at emotional survival, not unlike the strange swells of optimism and thanksgiving we entertain in that eponymous month, even as the days get shorter, the deep freeze sets in, and the winter solstice approaches.

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