''Humming'' is the second album by American singer-songwriter

Duncan Sheik Duncan Sheik (born November 18, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Sheik is known for his 1996 debut single "Barely Breathing", which earned him a Grammy Award nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. He has com ...

. It was released on

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over the course of its first two decades, starting from the release of its first recor ...

in 1998.

Release and reception

The album was met with moderate success and favorable reviews. According to

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

, the album "sprawls across similarly introspective terrain, yet veers more toward the pragmatic than the romantic", adding, "''Humming'' has a more profound and resonant base, complemented by accentuated drums and various string elements."Allmusic review
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Details

The album, which featured the London Session Orchestra on some tracks, contained tributes to other artists, including "That Says It All" and "A Body Goes Down"; the latter song is an

elegy An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...

for

Jeff Buckley Jeffrey Scott Buckley (raised as Scott Moorhead; November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997) was an American musician. After a decade as a session guitarist in Los Angeles, he attracted a cult following in the early 1990s performing at venues in ...

, following his death in 1997, which was also included in the documentary '' Amazing Grace: Jeff Buckley''. The final track is named after

Nichiren was a Japanese Buddhist priest and philosopher of the Kamakura period. His teachings form the basis of Nichiren Buddhism, a unique branch of Japanese Mahayana Buddhism based on the '' Lotus Sutra''. Nichiren declared that the '' Lotus Sutra ...

, who was a

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

monk of 13th century

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Track listing

#"In Between" - 4:32 #"Rubbed Out" - 5:09 #" Bite Your Tongue" - 3:56 #"Alibi" - 4:07 #"Varying Degrees of Con-Artistry" - 6:56 #"That Says It All" - 4:14 #"Everyone, Everywhere" - 3:30 #"A Body Goes Down" - 6:05 #"Nothing Special" - 3:28 #"House Full of Riches" - 5:37 #"Nichiren" - 14:47** **Note: A hidden song, "Foreshadowing," begins at the 6:40 mark of track 11 after the close of "Nichiren"

Personnel

* Duncan Sheik - acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harmonium, piano,

resonator guitar A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar (often generically called a " Dobro") is an acoustic guitar that produces sound by conducting string vibrations through the bridge to one or more spun metal cones (resonators), instead of to the guitar' ...

, lead vocals, backing vocals * Jeff Allen - six-string bass guitar,

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

, acoustic bass * Simon Hale - string arrangements, conductor * Rupert Hine -

harmonium The pump organ or reed organ is a type of organ that uses free reeds to generate sound, with air passing over vibrating thin metal strips mounted in a frame. Types include the pressure-based harmonium, the suction reed organ (which employs a va ...

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

, treated piano, backing vocals * Matt Johnson -

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

* Jarod Lanier -

alto flute The alto flute is an instrument in the Western concert flute family, pitched below the standard C flute and the uncommon flûte d'amour. It is the third most common member of its family after the standard C flute and the piccolo. It is chara ...

on "A Body Goes Down" and "Nichiren" * Gerry Leonard -

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

* The London Session Orchestra - strings * Jay Bellerose - drums on "In Between" * Abdellah Miry - violin on "A Body Goes Down" * Trevor Morais - bass drums * Mark Plati - bass guitar * Juliet Prater - bodhran,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

* Spooky Ghost - guitar loops (tracks 2,3,6,10) ;Technical *Ruadhri Cushnan - recording * Bob Clearmountain - mixing

Notes

{{Authority control 1998 albums Duncan Sheik albums Albums produced by Rupert Hine Atlantic Records albums