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It was one of those lightning-strikes moments that occasionally happens at concerts: An opening act encouraging, and succeeding, in getting fans to sing along. Alexi Murdoch inspired almost everyone in the audience at a show featuring Richard Thompson at the Byham Theater last summer to join in on the chorus of "Orange Sky."

"I have been so surprised by how attentive people are," says Murdoch, who performs tonight at the Club Cafe. "It's been such a confirming experience for me, this whole thing of getting out and playing music. Not just on a personal level. It's gratifying, obviously, as a musician to feel the music is being appreciated, but just on a human level to realize people are not as sedated and anesthetized as we might think looking at pop culture. People really do listen."

This type of confirmation of Murdoch's talents came not as a by-product of some grand design, but by accident. When he released "Four Songs" last year, it was intended to be a demo for a radio station in Los Angeles.

Murdoch was shocked when the station began to get requests for it and decided to release the four-song CD. More than 10,000 copies later, he's still amazed at how what he calls a sketch has turned into a word-of-mouth phenomenon that's drawn comparisons to Nick Drake's emotionally charged music.

"If the songs could be communicated in spite of the fact that it wasn't my best effort, production-wise, that it was recorded on downtime, a couple of hours here and there, then it means the songs are really what it's all about," he says. "And that's a good thing to be reminded of."

Murdoch, who was born in London, attended a boarding school in Scotland and started writing songs when he was 17. He came to North Carolina to study philosophy at Duke University before moving to Los Angeles to, ostensibly, write screenplays; in reality, he was chasing a woman.

But songwriting was always a goal, and it's turned into his strength. While Murdoch might think "Four Songs" is less than his best effort, "It's Only Fear," Blue Mind," "Song for You" and especially "Orange Sky" have a magical quality derived from their structures. While many artists use black-and-white terms, Murdoch's lyrics are malleable, an invitation to listeners to insert themselves in the song.

"If I have a philosophy -- and I wouldn't say it's something I've had from the beginning, it's a philosophy I've discovered -- that philosophy is in the space of the music," Murdoch says. "And the space in the music is more into the lyrics, that's where the space is. It's not just in the arrangements. It's not really a choice that I make, an aesthetic choice. It's an emotional choice. ... If you leave something blank, that's where there's a conversation as opposed to a monologue."

Naturally, Murdoch's success drew considerable attention. His manager received calls from most of the major labels, but Murdoch says it never came to the point of receiving an offer because he wasn't interested.

Thus, a couple of articles came out that portrayed him as a militant fighting the record industry.

"But it's not like that at all," he says. "Everybody's just doing their job, and I can completely appreciate that. I just felt from an artistic point of view, it's just the wrong decision to make. If you invite those people around to tea, and want to just sit around to talk about the state of the industry. That's fine. You'd have interesting conversations. But you don't invite them into the studio to make a record, that's just not where they belong."

Instead, he's been working on an album he hopes to release in the next few months that will be quite different from sketches of "Four Songs."

"I'm kind of up to my elbows in oil paints," Murdoch says.

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