Singing in shivering vibrato, modestly draped in sparse piano, Chris Garneau is the kind of artist that reminds us pain is sweet, there is still a thing called songwriting and people will never lose their taste for either.

Kicking off his second Asian tour with a subdued yet impressive New Year’s Day turnout at Beijing’s Yugong Yishan, Garneau is back on the Chinese mainland with his brand of New York City art song, promoting his second release El Radio and hitting up nine major cities before heading to Taipei, Seoul and Tokyo.

In contrast to his polished recordings that feature orchestral arrangements and tinkered keyboard sounds, Garneau has stripped down for this tour, baring himself for Beijing and donning nothing but a Kurzweil and the tasty drumming of Ben Shapiro. The opening show was also deprived of cellist Anna Callner who arrived in Beijing backstage just hours after the performance and will complete the trio for the remainder of the tour.

Brimming with raw youth, Garneau’s set was a humbly emotional collection of musical loveletters, stolen diaries and high school suicide notes, reminding us that piano ballads are not all soft around the edges and if done right, can slice you like a cornered criminal. Garneau juxtaposes this with his lowkey stage persona. Keeping crowd talk to a minimum, Garneau reached out to his largely Chinese audience with just a few "thank yous" and even a "happy new year" in shaky yet tonally correct Chinese. It was this kind of sweet insecurity that the audience found endearing.

"I liked the intimacy of the show and how shy he was," said 22-year-old Gu Xiao while holding her CD waiting for an autograph after the show.

Cutting his teeth playing shows at the singer-songwriter Mecca, Sidewalk Café in New York’s East Village, during the early part of the decade, Garneau admittedly stands on the shoulders of anti-folk giants such as Sufjan Stevens, Regina Spektor and Grizzly Bear. But after one song it’s obvious that his theatrical yet folkie-soulful sound is multi-faceted, drawing from many other diverse infl uences.

"I’m inspired by early 20th century Vaudeville and cabaret, as well as Americana. I’m also a fan of Neil Young," Garneau explained.

The most striking elements of Garneau’s arsenal are his careful piano choices and endearingly strained voice, which tell of his trained musical background starting from childhood up to a short stint at the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston. Bouncing nimbly in minor syncopation with songs like his new album’s opening track Dirty Night Clowns and three/four rhythms of Love Zombies, Garneau exposes his classical roots.

"I started on piano when I was 5, kind of following my older sisters who were taking the obligatory piano lessons that most kids end up taking, but as they lost interest later on I fell in love with it."

His paradoxically thin yet powerful voice has the intensity of a whispered confession, summoning Joni Mitchell and Cat Power with the desperate immediacy of Xiu Xiu frontman Jamie Stewart. However, Garneau doesn’t merely indulge in trudging his emotional depths. His playful and whimsically spun melodies in songs like No More Pirates stroll on the sunnier side of the street.

"I had spent time studying musical theater and voice in both New York and during part of my childhood in France," Garneau explained.

His new album was the product of three two-month sessions in an isolated New Hampshire hideaway, two years of fermentation and the partnership of long-time collaborator Saul Simon- MacWilliams.

"If I don’t know what I want right away, I’ll at least know what I don’t want," Garneau said of recording El Radio.

As to the artistic choices and direction of his new batch of songs, Garneau leaned toward the organic, letting the songs germinate when appropriate and putting his trust in the creative flow.

"When you don’t have distractions and you trust everyone, the songs turn into what they are supposed to be, their full potential."

Catch Garneau on his next stop tonight at 4698 in Changsha, Hunan Province, followed by Guangdong shows at the Iron Age Space in Guangzhou and Idutang Loft in Shenzhen before his farewell performance at Hong Kong’s Hidden Agenda on January 11.  

What’s on your latest playlist?

Here We Go Magic, a release by Luke Temple in February 2009 and Bill Callahan (also known as Smog). What’s your favorite musical guilty pleasure?

  Mariah Carey.

What band or artist changed your life?

   Nina Simone.

What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

  Well, everything around me. It could be inanimate objects in a room like a lamp, or the wind outside. It’s everything I can sense, feel – that includes people around me, my friends and family.

What turns you off?

   If I can sense there is some other purpose or motive other than art behind a creative experience.

What sound or noise do you love?

  Children playing in the distance. Actually I feel like I hear that often on records.

What sound or noise do you hate?

  Plastic bags crinkling. I can’t even carry a plastic bag from the grocery store, it drives me crazy.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

  Working in human or animal rights. In fact, Anna Callner (Garneau’s cello player) and I are planning to start a music education program in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, aiming to help underprivileged children and battered women.

What song would you like to have played at your funeral?

Sunflower by Low.