Nick Drake - "Broken Earth"?

Seems like a pretty recent thing, maybe some home-recording Drake fan?

Oh, you are right. My memory failed me on this one. I downloaded it and gave it a listen again and the vocalist sounds not at all like Ayers or Nick Drake for that matter. The vocal seems to have a more Bryan Ferry/David Sylvian-inspired delivery, while the song as a
whole does manage to somewhat capture Nick Drake's tone.

It's certainly NOT Nick Drake or Kevin Ayers, apart from the lack of real vocal similarity to Drake,
the lyrics are quite unlike anything either has written.
I can just see how someone might have mistaken it for Drake in one of his doomier moments though, and while the vocal similarity to Ayers is actually closer, the tone is completey wrong for him.
While it's not impossible it's The Soft Machine doing the backing, I doubt that too.

It sounds VERY much like David Sylvian circa mid-late 80s to me, musically as well as vocally.
He's the only one who fits the bill on both counts.
However a trawl through various Sylvian discographies doesn't turn anything up.
That in itself doesn't mean anything though. If the person who originally put it up on Napster can get the artist wrong, then it's a fair bet they got the title wrong too...

Unless of course, it's by someone I've never heard of.

the L.A. -based Balcony (Music), mainly the work of an ex-UK guy Steven Lester, who had the clever idea of putting his songs about on the file-shares as legendary unreleased Scott Walker meets David Sylvian sessions, etc. think one song was even named "Jobriath". anyway, the twist is his lavishly theatrical tunes are REALLY good, GREAT even...!

http://www.balconymusic.com/