"Around the Margins" is the title of Doug Hoekstra's fourth album, but in a way it's an apt description of the guy's career.

Being born in Naperville, living in Nashville and becoming a recording star in the Netherlands, Hoekstra has made unconventionality high art.

He dodges many labels, the most obvious being singer-songwriter.

Instead, Hoekstra is more at home somewhere alongside musical iconoclasts such as Tom Waits or Bill Callahan of Smog. While indie rock may be rich with misplaced oddballs such as Callahan or Jim O'Rourke, Hoekstra doesn't fit there, either. There's less irony in his songs than there is genuine sentiment and the experi-mental nature of his new album (drum loops, synths) sounds like "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" next to, let's say, Tortoise.

Instead, Hoekstra's true allegiance may be to visual drama. Like the work of producer Daniel Lanois, the songs from his new album evoke noirish moods with big-time sound pictures. It helps that Hoekstra doesn't even sing. Barely audible, he whispers deep inside grooves, which can be suddenly arresting when a gospel choir jumps in behind him ("Birmingham Jail") or a heavenly female voice weaves in alongside his own, providing a startling contrast. Kind of like Leonard Cohen's dry, doomsday voice caught inside the mirrorball beat on "I'll Take Manhattan."

Helping shape the visual pull of the music are accoutrements like sliced-in home interviews with family members, wheezing harmonicas, the clatter of train tracks, whimsical horns and droning strings. While Hoekstra's obtuse worlds can veer towards preciousness ("That's Where He Was Living"), mostly it opens to a dreamy melting pot where country, pop and personal history meld together.

That kind of dogged individuality has earned him raves overseas from the European press. It's attention that has prompted tours in the UK and beyond (he returns there in the fall). Although he self-released his first two albums, his last album, "Make Me Believe," was released overseas on the British label Round Tower and his newest is on Inbetweens, a label from the Netherlands with offices in San Francisco.

"(European fans) do seem to be more open to people who are more quirkier," he said. "I think they're a little more connected to a literary musical culture than a TV culture (here)."

Despite the globetrotting, "Around the Margins" has roots in Hoekstra's upbringing in Chicago's suburbs. It mines memories of discovering his brother's record collection, riding the train in from the city and being as-saulted by images of "houses flying by the windows" ("Houses Flying") - visualized by the incessant drum loops.

Hoekstra was raised in Naperville, his dad a purchasing agent and mother a secretary at Amoco. Like a scene out of "Almost Famous," when Hoekstra discovered his brother's vinyl, it became a key out of the Western burbs.

"No one wanted to be an artist ... it's the corporate world. It was very foreign. There wasn't a lot to relate to," he said.

After stints in and out of colleges, Hoekstra landed in Chicago and got involved in the local rock scene. He formed Bucket Number Six, an early alt.country band that recorded two albums in the first half of the '90s.

After that, he started on his solo career, which was partially influenced by producer Brad Wood (Liz Phair, Smashing Pumpkins), who convinced him to stop singing loud and tone it down to a whisper. "He said 'it draws me into your story'," Hoekstra said. "I think it's the more natural texture of my voice. After that I tried to cultivate it all the time."

But being on the local scene took a toll and seven years ago, Hoekstra moved to Nashville. "I didn't want to feel like a loser playing the same clubs. I wanted new challenges, new experiences. It freed me. It made me focus on a style that was my own," he said.

Hoekstra began meeting musicians who, outside their day jobs providing polish to, say, Garth Brooks records, were hungry to work on music that was different. He also fit into the side of Nashville's music community that isn't country oriented at all. Aside from its looming country music past, modern day Nashville is populated by songwriters and musicians working outside country and just as interested in pop and rock.

After recording half his album, though, Hoekstra returned to Chicago to finish it up with collaborator Jeff Kowalkowski in his home studio. Living in his house over a couple of long weekends, the two recorded basic tracks all day. When Hoekstra returned to Nashville, Kowalkowski - one half of the avant-garde duo Jack the Dog - would orchestrate the songs with the appropriate horns, strings or whatever else was necessary.

"It was a very free atmosphere," Hoekstra remembers. "We worked very quickly."

The marathon sessions helped produce the elaborate-minded, yet sparse-sounding songs that tell stories in a roundabout way, making associations that aren't necessarily obvious. It's a knack Hoekstra admits he had since a child.

"I was always looking for the story in everything," he said. "There always seemed to be in my consciousness that awareness of story and how things connected."

The scoop

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