Paul Buchanan: Mid Air

Blue Nile fans have learned to take any crumb from the band whenever they can get it, since one never knows when we’ll hear from them again. But most songwriters insist that when the muse deigns to strike, it’s best to do what she says.

Paul Buchanan has long been the face and voice of the band, both musically and promotionally, so a solo album is a surprising move. Mid Air is a expectedly quiet set of sad songs, mostly based on the piano with very little ornamentation. Many of the songs sound alike, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. His lyrics have always been about mood more than meaning, and since there’s usually some sort of ache involved, the meaning becomes the mood.

The title track, “Half A World” and “Cars In The Garden” would have been welcome interludes on any Blue Nile album, while “Newsroom”, the shortest of these short songs, shows the first derivation from the same octave. It doesn’t take much imagination to hear the percussion that isn’t on “Buy A Motor Car”, and “Two Children” manages to shift focus and delivery in each verse. “Tuesday” begins with a melody familiar from several Lionel Richie ballads, but he finds his own by the end of the first verse. The pretty instrumental “Fin De Siècle” provides a break from the spoken heartbreak, and “After Dark”, which tops out at a whopping four minutes, ends with a hint of his trademark “yeah yeah” and a touch of trumpet.

Mid Air seems like a set of demos, and that’s fine. That alone keeps it from falling victim to the comparatively heavy-handed production that made the last two Blue Nile albums less than perfect. If the fourteen tracks here aren’t enough, one can always seek out the double-disc version, which adds another ten variations and exclusives. And if eight years is all we have to wait for another album from Paul Buchanan, so be it. Hopefully he’ll still be around.

Paul Buchanan Mid Air (2012)—3

Blue Nile 4: High

Five years, seven years… having to wait only eight years for a new Blue Nile album was almost bucking the trend. But it doesn’t matter when High is as good as it is, and certainly better than Peace At Last. Here we finally have a real Blue Nile album, combining the minimalist pop if the first album, the lushness of Hats, and even the better acoustic moments of the previous one. Paul Buchanan dominates, as ever, but the other guys are still credited.

Stabby piano chords sustain “The Days Of Our Lives”, which slowly builds on the verge of becoming something but never resolving. It becomes a mere introduction for “I Would Never”, a classic ballad with just the right amount of Buchanan ache. Those stabby chords return on “Broken Loves”, but work around a bass part to give it more shape. Wisely, the effect of the spoken part repeated by a sung one doesn’t continue through the whole thing. With excellent balance, “Because Of Toledo” returns to plaintive acoustic regret, tough it’s not clear what it was about Toledo (pronounced like the Ohio city, and not the Spanish one) that seemingly pushed him to rehab. And then it’s back to the edgier, upbeat portrait in “She Saw The World”.

The title track is another sumptuous piano ballad, with a hint of fake strings and just the right amount of fake percussion — in other words, quintessential Blue Nile. That makes “Soul Boy” something of a retreat to the last album, musically and lyrically (“no more fight and no more leave” hearkens back to “Family Life”) but it’s still effective. The way it slows to a halt suggests the end of the album, but “Everybody Else” gathers enough momentum to keep things rolling before “Stay Close” provides another subdued’ lengthy conclusion.

High doesn’t sustain its strength throughout the program; after all, there could never be another Hats, could there? Still, for those of us who weren’t expecting much, it contributed a wonderful next chapter in the Blue Nile story, and we knew enough not to expect anything else for a while.

In fact, the rest of the catalog had been upgraded with bonus tracks well before they got to this one. Along with remixes of two songs, four unreleased tracks added to the bounty. “Wasted” could stand to have its drum machine mixed back sooner, but the melody is as nice as that in “i” (lowercase intentional). “Big Town” is a little busy, and despite the trappings of suburbia, “Here Come The Bluebirds” provides a low-key conclusion.

The Blue Nile High (2004)—3½
2020 Remastered Collector's Edition: same as 2004, plus 6 extra tracks

Blue Nile 3: Peace At Last

In the wake of Hats’ success, singer Paul Buchanan worked on albums by such people as Robbie Robertson and Julian Lennon and was even seen in the company of Rosanna Arquette (which would have made for some interesting conversation when he got to work with Peter Gabriel, but there we go getting ahead of ourselves again). Back in the land of The Blue Nile, their attention to detail meant that their third album, the more naturally acoustic Peace At Last, didn’t arrive for another seven years.

This is all on the assumption that the album was indeed a band project, because while all three members are listed in the notes, most of the songwriting is credited solely to Buchanan, and he’s the only guy pictured anywhere in the artwork. What also makes it different is the prominent acoustic guitar and real drums used throughout the first half.

After a trademark swell of synth, “Happiness” tiptoes in with a prayer to Jesus, complete with gospel choir belting out the title near the end. “Tomorrow Morning” has a little more pep, working better to sell the album. “Sentimental Man” builds canvas-style, but so do “Love Come Down” and “Body And Soul”, leading us to think that all should have been combined for one stellar track instead of three middling ones.

In the second half, the percussion reverts to electronic, making “Holy Love” little more than a demo. And it wouldn’t be a Blue Nile album without a tearjerker, and Buchanan pulls out all the stops for “Family Life”. Here a simple piano and high, swelling strings are the only accompaniment for another prayer of sorts, this time from the scene of a lonesome Christmas Eve. It’s not clear what’s got the narrator so upset, but you just want to give him a hug, with your own eyes burning by the time the little trumpet motif decorates the arrangement before the coda. The electronics come back to underscore the maxim that “War Is Love”, whatever that means. Just as befuddling is “God Bless You Kid”, until the chorus takes over and we return to classic Blue Nile territory. The ending goes on a little long, and “Soon” doesn’t make an impact until the bridge.

We’re tempted to demote the album below passing, except that Peace At Last isn’t necessarily bad. Utilizing the editing suggested above would go a long way to improving the overall listen. The “Happiness” CD singles overseas had three otherwise unreleased “B-sides”, two of which were easily as good if not better than what made the album, and none of which made it to the eventual expanded reissue. Instead we get three new, alternate mixes of songs from the album, two never-before-heard tracks and one demo, none very illuminating.

The Blue Nile Peace At Last (1996)—3
2014 Remastered Collector's Edition: same as 1996, plus 6 extra tracks

Blue Nile 2: Hats

A Walk Across The Rooftops was intriguing, but not immediately stunning. When their second album came out at the end of the decade, that did the trick.

Hats follows the template of the first album closely: seven tracks, mostly around the five- to six-minute range, alternating upbeat tracks with slower numbers. All feature yearning lyrics and aching melodies, and it’s really hard to put into words the emotions they convey. The basic instrumentation consists of synthesizers, guitar, bass, trumpet, percussion and the soaring vocals of Paul Buchanan.

“Over The Hillside” creeps in with electronic drums and (fake?) strings, but the effect isn’t as cold as on their first album. By the time the song winds up you’ve got the sensation of riding a train going home (more on that later). “The Downtown Lights” was a moderate hit in the UK, and got even more notice when covered by Annie Lennox and Rod Stewart, both of whom followed the impressionistic arrangement to the letter. Just when the song seems to be winding down, an extended coda kicks in with incredibly picturesque imagery. “Let’s Go Out Tonight” closes what was once considered side one on a melancholy note, with a slow, ticking beat and stairstep guitar over sad piano accents. There’s an undercurrent of tension, accented by the repeat of the first verse an octave higher.

“Headlights On The Parade” has elements of the techno-pop sound that was all the rage in the ‘80s, but transcends it (again) with the vocal. While all these songs are stunners, “From A Late Night Train” is probably the album’s high point. It’s quite evocative of the scenery one could see south of Boston from the window of the Amtrak—to suggest just one mind movie of the thousands of candidates available worldwide—the streetlights shining on waterways and wet pavements. The entire lyric bleeds regret, leading right up to the breakdown of the last line. The switch from the minor to the major-seventh at the end is one of the oldest tricks in the book, but they pull it off.

After all that, “Seven A.M.” is a little monotonous; they must have known this when sequencing the album, as there’s several seconds of silence before it stumbles in. And while “Saturday Night” doesn’t live up to the potential of what has come before, the last minute or so, while repetitive, always leaves one wanting more.

Hats is truly one of the hidden gems of the ‘80s, arriving in what turned out to be a pretty good year for albums that have endured. It’s also another wonderful album for quiet evenings and rainy mornings, and it can be enjoyed even if one hasn’t been wallowing in self-pity. As with many classic albums, the eventual expanded remaster didn’t uncover any real gold, save a few alternate takes, one unreleased song (the underwhelming “Christmas”), a live version of “Headlights” and the okay B-side “The Wires Are Down”.

The Blue Nile Hats (1989)—5
2012 Remastered Collector's Edition: same as 1989, plus 6 extra tracks

Blue Nile 1: A Walk Across The Rooftops

A Scottish band called The Blue Nile bubbled out of obscurity in the mid-‘80s, with an inscrutable sound as oddly appealing as it was anti-mainstream. Their debut LP, A Walk Across The Rooftops was a slow burning success, particularly considering how long it took for them to do a follow-up.

The album is an exercise in minimalism. At its most basic it’s synth-pop, using all the sounds available in the first half of the ‘80s, with a drum machine not yet advanced to sound real. The tracks are constructed like paintings, not as a set of chord changes upon which the lyrics hang. A few beats here, a guitar or bass line there, and a wash of keyboard combine for the general feel. Paul Buchanan’s vocals, straining just this side of proper pitch, express longing and other emotions wrapped in glamorous imagery borrowed from old movies. Sometimes they make sense, other times you wonder if he learned to speak English phonetically.

The opening title track contains all these aspects, and would seem to epitomize the album. It seeps in like fog as the narrator walks across said rooftops, before boldly declaring, “I am in love.” A distant trumpet adds some further color, and it fades away much the way it arrived. “Tinseltown In The Rain” is driven by a funkier rhythm, with enough of a hook to have it pass for a hit single. The bridge asks the pointed question, “Do I love you?” (The answer: “Yes, I love you.” Good to know.) The more mechanical “From Rags To Riches” is another symphony of randomly placed sounds; this time he’s sure to explain that he’s “in love with the feeling”. Not a lot happens for seven minutes.

“Stay” is a more straightforward pop song, though that pre-programmed fill is the aural equivalent of the Wilhelm scream. Possibly the highlight is “Easter Parade”, a quiet and pretty piano piece with the slightest of color and a vocal not too far removed from Bruce Springsteen. (Rickie Lee Jones re-recorded this with the band themselves, which makes them sound like her in reverse.) The final two songs evoke more of the factory sounds in their own unique ways; “Heatwave” is not the Motown classic, and “Automobile Noise” gives the feeling of silently leaving the city behind.

While a little cold, A Walk Across The Rooftops is a sneaky little album that succeeds in spite of itself. Truly, nothing really sounds like it, and its cult has grown steadily since its release. Enough interest in the album over the years led to the inevitable remaster with bonus tracks. While Blue Nile obsessives complained about what was left off (like the Rickie Lee Jones song), at least they could finally enjoy pristine digital copies of the band’s elusive first single, the gorgeous B-side “Regret”, and the phenomenal unreleased gem “St. Catherine’s Day”.

The Blue Nile A Walk Across The Rooftops (1984)—3½
2012 Remastered Collector's Edition: same as 1984, plus 7 extra tracks