Longing to find some natural and warmly expressive acoustic music that would inspire the soul, I stumbled across native New Yorker and acoustic modern urban pop-folk artist extraordinare David Berkeley and his recently released debut album The Confluence.

Berkeley "spent five formative years in the hallowed halls of Harvard where he learned alliteration," according to his Web site www.davidberkeley.com, and met the love of his life. He studied literature and philosophy, and then decided to move West to work as a white-water rafting guide.

He spent five summers on the rivers of Idaho and Montana, and the title of his album is named after the confluence of the Salmon and Snake Rivers, just southeast of the intersection of Oregon, Idaho and Washington. Currently, Berkeley plays various gigs around New York City and will launch a national tour in mid-December.

The Confluence offers 11 tracks varying in style, with some featuring intricate guitar-picking and softly spoken lyrics about the subtle and sobering experiences of life, infused with regret, as seen in "Miss Maybe." Others showcase emotional floods of passionate and dramatic despair, as seen in "Drowning," which addresses the tragedy of Sept. 11.

When listening to his work on cdbaby.com, I encountered an astonishingly tender and wistful voice, which seemed to sing out during life's bluest and most beautiful moments of melancholy, love and reflection, complemented by arrangements complete with the mandolin, piano, trombone and cello. Editors at the Web site cdbaby.com comment on the sensual, soothing and intimate sound of Berkeley, writing, "This new collection of songs, The Confluence, is a layered wash of natural sounds, warm like a tumbler half-full of bourbon, smooth as the silk square in your coat pocket." Further, they tag Berkeley as the "new darling of the folk world."

While Berkeley released The Confluence in December 2001, the entertainment media has just now caught word of this treasure of a musician, and on Oct. 22, Robin Aigner of Rolling Stone noted that, "he's a double fantasy of Nick Drake and Donovan, the kind of guy who 'gives you daisies everyday' ("Breeze") and tells a young love 'you are like the moon/I watch you as you glow' ("Moon Song")."

Indeed, Berkeley's dreamy ballad "Moon Song," which discusses the story about two lovers includes such unabashedly sentimental and romantic lyrics as, "You see, the boy would be her nightingale if she would be his muse." Yet while these words might cause some to scoff and roll their eyes, the refreshing aspect to Berkeley's music lies in his simplistic and honest approach to the subjects about which he writes.

A case in point, the song "Trouble For A Fool" explores personal isolation of the sentient individual pitted against the cold world, when he writes, "It's a windy night. There's nothing nice about it, nothing nice about the blowing wind./Someone must have blown the constellations apart ­ our conversations blowing backward from the start./It's a hard night. There's nothing nice about it, nothing warm about the blowing wind."

Other notable tracks include "Breeze," which examines personal despondency because of a lost love. He writes, "I want to take you to the stream and go where it wanders. Waters whisper out my name./Skip your sorrows like a stone over my shoulder. Lay your head upon my side." Yet, the object of his desire walks out of his life and cooly passes by, like a brisk gust of wind.

Also worthy of notice, the richly produced opener "Straw Man," features such lyrics to swoon and then sigh to as he sings about the adoration he feels for a love, followed by an intense internal fear of ultimate loneliness when he writes, "She makes the world around me seem lavender and wintergreen when we're side by side É Still a quiet, lonely day on America's highway, and I am almost home. Pick up the phone. Say that living life alone ain't how the story ends."

Ideal for listening to during a sleepy autumn afternoon, while sipping some vanilla hot tea and lighting a few candles, The Confluence may be sampled and purchased through www.cdbaby.com.