Duncan Sheik takes his work seriously and treats his medium lovingly:
There's no truck with irony, and despite his fashionable looks, friends, and
education (his degree in semiotics at Brown has been well documented), he
isn't much interested in being a trendy musician winking knowingly at his MTV
generation. He is a rare and wonderful thing:  an unabashedly inpassioned and
earnest (earnest!) pop musician.

Sheik's first album, a languid collection of finely wrought acoustic pop
songs, received critical acclaim and enough airplay to make Sheik the
introspective, melancholy musician of the moment. "It was an introspective
album. I was young." He talks about his second album, Humming (from Atlantic
Records in October), with infectious enthusiasm and excitement. "I think
every album, every piece of work is a reaction against the last. This album
is definately less introspective."

For Humming, Sheik listened to Indian classical music and Moroccan string
musicians- refreshing to his ears and his musical vocabulary with esoteric
counds. Yet Sheik's mellow voice, lightness of touch, and impatience with
anything tricksy do not mean that his is an artist without ambition: "Pop
music should not just be about fun."