It would be hard to overstate the dreamy impressionism of Duncan Sheik's new CD, Phantom Moon .
Woodwinds drift in the spaces between guitar strings.
Melancholy cellos and violins are everywhere. There are sweet silver mermaids here, and mouths on fire. The two met at Soka Gakkai International, a lay Buddhist organization where Sater runs the arts division and Sheik practices his adopted religion. Although Phantom Moon is subtly flavored by Eastern thought and sounds, as well as strains of the American heartland, it's more precisely the musical and spiritual descendant of Nick Drake, the great unsung hero of British folk-rock. He is neither ambivalent about his public reverence for Drake's work nor concerned about creating so blatant an homage.