Richard Barbieri / Tim Bowness - Flame (1994)

Related:

Tim Bowness / Samuel Smiles - World of Bright Futures (1999)

No-Man - Together We're Stranger (2003)

Artful, nocturnal melancholy featuring the vocal stylings of Tim Bowness, who as far as I know hasn't stopped being sad since at least the early 90s. If you had told a 16-year-old me that I'd end up liking the same kind of sleekly produced, middle-aged sad sack music that my dad forced me to listen to in the car on the way to school, I probably would've quoted "Life Sentence" at you and skulked away to smoke cigarettes with my faux-hippie girlfriend and assure myself that I would never, ever be like my dad -- who, it turns out, was right all along.

Track listing:

1. A Night in Heaven

2. Song of Love and Everything Part I and II

3. Brightest Blue

4. Flame

5. Trash Talk

6. Time Flown

7. Torch Dance

8. Feel

See me

Also listen to:

Rain Tree Crow - Rain Tree Crow (1991)

Alesini & Andreoni - Marco Polo (1995)

Tim Bowness / Samuel Smiles - World of Bright Futures (1999)

Related:
No-Man - Together We're Stranger (2003)

Nocturnal, jazz-tinged melancholy from the eternally downcast Tim Bowness and company. A commenter on a post a while back asked if I could recommend anything in same vein as The Blue Nile, and if they're reading this now: aside from the lack of synths, this might scratch that itch.

Track listing:
World of Bright Futures
1. World of Bright Futures
2. Dreaming of Babylon
3. (Watching) Over Me
4. Sorry Looking Soldier
5. Two Hands
6. Red Eye Removal
7. Something of You
8. Lisa/Ophelia
9. Small
10. Smaller
Live Disc
1. Come to Me
2. Never Lose Control
3. Something of You
4. Sweet Kiss
5. Brightest Blue

They're touching
Touching each other
They push and move
And love each other
They fit together like two hands

More along these lines:

Mark Isham -
Mark Isham (1990)

Rain Tree Crow -
Rain Tree Crow (1991)

No-Man - Together We're Stranger (2003)

No-Man is a duo consisting of vocalist/songwriter Tim Bowness and multi-instrumentalist Steven Wilson, best known for his work with Porcupine Tree. With Together We're Stranger, they did away with all of their trip-hop leanings to explore more lush, sprawling, yet subdued territory than ever before, ending up with a sound that's half Pink Floyd circa Dark Side of the Moon, and half Talk Talk circa Laughing Stock. Not only is it pretty much inarguably their best record, it's easily one of my top five breakup albums. It's a little sappy, but it breaks my heart anyway.

Track listing:
1. Together We're Stranger
2. All the Blue Changes
3. The City in a Hundred Ways
4. Things I Want to Tell You
5. Photographs in Black and White
6. Back When You Were Beautiful
7. The Break-Up for Real

We step outside and face the poison weather
You and I are something else together