New York City Articles

For those Broadway-centric attendees - and Carlyle regulars - the debut of Duncan Sheik at the Cafe Carlyle contains a lot of surprises. Most of us know him through the two shows of his that have thus far made it to Broadway, the Tony-winning Spring Awakening (2006) and American Psycho (2016). The first is about teen anguish (and German teen anguish at that), although it has many gentler moments; the second, well, it’s about American psychos, and uses some very challenging forms of avant-rock to tell its highly-disturbing story (the logo for the show was a set of headphones dripping with blood). However, in person in the intimate space of the Carlyle, much of Mr. Sheik’s music is unexpectedly romantic - and that applies both to his “singer-songwriter” material, those songs he wrote for his eight solo albums (thus far). “Circling” is a compelling, thoughtful ballad, even more so in person than on his latest album, the 2015 Legerdemain. Overall, he and his trio at the Carlyle (with Jason Hart, keyboards, and Doug Yowell, drums), create a lovely minimalist vibe throughout the evening, putting one in mind of film score composers like Carter Burwell. For Broadway buffs, the highlights were the songs like “Mama Who Bore Me,” from Spring Awakening, done as a duo with Kathryn Gallagher. Yet for a goodly portion of the crowd, the song that they came to hear was Mr. Sheik’s biggest pop hit, the 1996 “Barely Breathing,” which served as a perfect encore and closer.