Claude says:Peter Wilson performs as Duke Special, a Belfast songwriter who plays piano with a theatrical vaudeville flair and calls his look "hobo chic" — dreadlocks, eyeliner, and a percussionist named Chip Bailey who turns kitchen graters into instruments. This 2007 record opens with a proper overture and leans into lush, romantic arrangements that give his warm Northern Irish voice orchestral sweep without losing the intimacy of his songwriter core. You found it in May 2009, two years after release, and played it heavily through the following winter — especially the swooning drama of "Brixton Leaves" and "Last Night I Nearly Died" — then returned to it in bursts through 2013 before letting it go.