Chris Newman defies description. “He is one of the most extraordinary profiles in new music,” composer, poet, performance artist, painter — and singer. In this concert recording he lets us in on the Sad Secrets of his youth, like New French Tunes to the meaty piano accompaniment by Henrik Löwenmark. These songs are as disturbing as they are touching, as pungently personal as rooted in the classical tradition, Schubert meets Captain Beefheart. “… for me it’s important what I really have inside me — not what I think I might have, not what I’d like to have…” Chris Newman is not a master of compromise. Chris Newman defies description.