I heard this morning that Duncan Sheik sadly passed away yesterday at the early age of 56 (one year older than me). He’s been a mainstay in my writing soundtracks for years, ever since his 1996 self-titled debut album. You will most likely know him from the hit that gets played the most, “Barely Breathing”.
I loved hearing that song on the radio when I was commuting to and from work. I actually taught myself proper breathing by singing along to it; the extended lines in that chorus (and its ending in a long “anyway…” that jumps a full octave) are not for the weak! That first album, however, is full of stellar songwriting that goes well beyond what some might see as a one hit wonder. Take the lovely opener “She Runs Away”…
…and the hauntingly delicate ballad “In the Absence of Sun”.
And that’s just the first three tracks. The whole album is full of lovely songs and sounds that prove his strengths as a songwriter so early in his career.
I listened to this first album quite frequently during those early years writing in my parents’ basement. It took me away from the distractions of real life and set me somewhere not quite meditative yet not quite dislocated either. I could get lost in this music, and often did.
He even managed to sneak in yet another banger of a single, “Wishful Thinking” from the Great Expectations album in 1998.
A few years later in 2001 he dropped an interesting album called Phantom Moon, an album that is a bit of a tribute to Nick Drake (and specifically his album Pink Moon, which would only get its due with a wide audience many years later due to its title track featured on a car commercial), full of quiet and poetic folk songs like the wonderful “Mr. Chess” which was one of my favorite tracks of that year. [Side note: Sheik would name his 2006 greatest hits album Brighter/Later as a nod to Drake’s other great album Bryter Layter.]
He’d follow that up just a year later with another wonderful up-tempo record, 2002’s Daylight, which features another of my favorites, “Such Reveries”.
Duncan Sheik’s musical path would take an interesting side trip from here on in, only occasionally recording and releasing a few albums here and there. He would instead focus on writing the music for several stage musicals such as Spring Awakening, Whisper House, Alice By Heart, and yes, American Psycho. He would also write the music for multiple Shakespeare productions.
And in 2011 he released a wonderful acoustic record aimed at us Gen-Xers called Covers 80s, featuring his own takes on our favorites from Depeche Mode, New Order, Tears for Fears, Japan, The Smiths, and Talk Talk.
He’d only release two more albums after that, 2015’s Legerdemain and 2022’s Claptrap, though he’d continue to work on his stage musicals up until his passing. The latest, Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen, is scheduled to pay off-Broadway next month.
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Duncan Sheik was always one of those musicians on my I will buy anything they put out even if I haven’t heard anything yet list, thanks to that first album. Whenever I was working on the Mendaihu Universe, eventually those first couple of albums would receive a return spin. His music might be tagged as Adult Alternative, considering it works so well on Listen At Work stations, but it was far from banal or lacking emotion. He told stories in his songs, took the melodies in interesting directions, and treated his music as full compositions. And I think that’s partly why I loved listening to his work during my writing sessions: it was just that perfect level of light yet intriguing and fit the mood perfectly every single time.
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