Mid Air [CD]

I notice that this is the first 4 star review of this album when people seem to either love or hate it. Like many other people I know, I consider The Blue Nile's "Hats" is one of the top albums of all time (though extraordinarily it is not in Rolling Stone's recent Top 500 albums - but then again there is no Kate Bush album in those 500 either!) and I approached this album thinking that it would be in the same mould. What you have here however is very sparse - on many tracks it is just voice and solo piano and it got me thinking what would "Hats" have sounded like "unplugged" and I think the answer is - very similar. This impression is reinforced by the one (gorgeous) track "Fin De Siecle" that has full orchestration and sounds very old-style Blue Nile - but then it is also the one track on which (intentionally?) ironically Buchanan does not sing! If you can accept the spartan arrangements, the quality of Buchanan's songwriting remains very high and I particularly disagree with one previous reviewer who complained of repetitive lyrics - this has always been one of his strengths as a lyric writer and only adds to the power of many of his songs. In summary if you are a Blue Nile fan please give this album time - if you are not - don't start here - buy "Hats" today!

The interesting thing about reading these reviews is that the one star and the five star reviews both make comments about this album that it is difficult to deny: it is slow and one paced, it doesn't really ever break its emotional or musical stride and a lot of the tracks do blend into one another.

But that is also its remarkable strength. I think the only real problem with this album is that it needs much, much longer silences between each track so that the listener can effectively absorb what has just been heard. And what has just been heard is always, always, gorgeous. Paul's voice is, as ever, a suberb instrument that he holds on to here, never letting go as he did on some 'Peace at Last' tracks and to a certain extent elsewhere in the Blue Nile cannon. Here he holds on to the emotion in a 'Family Life'esque kind of way which, yes, does sometimes make you want to shout at him 'Let go, Paul, just let go', but you also know him well enough to know that really he can't and that is what makes his voice so powerful and his music so very engaging.

This is an intimate parlour record best listened to on your own, with headphones, late at night with a glass of Scotch and the family asleep upstairs. You can indulge yourself and remember that despite it all, despite the quotidian tedium of getting up and going to work, despite the housework and the cooking, the cleaning and the washing, it is all worthwhile because you are in love.

This is a lovely, lovely record. It is slow, it is one paced. It doesn't break out of the perametres it sets itself. But within them, it is a thing of great beauty.

It is difficult knowing where precisely to commence this review. You could give a potted history of the Blue Nile one of the greatest bands ever to grace these Isles despite their frugal and agonizingly slow output (four albums since 1984). You could track the fact that a very long eight years has passed since 2004's excellent "High" and now the band has split up. You could welcome the return of the possibly the best voice in British rock music bar none and celebrate how he has dusted himself down and picked up the tools again. And finally you could rejoice at the sheer magnificence of this solo album by Paul Buchanan and offer praise to the mighty forces that you are able to add to your record collection one of the most sublime albums of this or any year.

The template for "Mid Air" Buchanan's first solo work seems to draw on the sparse piano acoustics that made the first part of "Family life" on "Peace at last" such an moving and intoxicating feast. On "Mid Air" Buchanan employs the "less is more" principle to great effect. None of these 14 stunning miniatures goes much over the three-minute mark yet as a collective whole they are a body of work that pack an emotional punch as big as a Scottish Munro. Buchanan's recent performance of the brilliant title track with Jools Holland set out all the clues. The yearning lyric "The buttons on your collar, the colour of your hair, I think I see you everywhere" kicks off a song so simple yet so emotive that it stops you dead in your tracks. And what about that voice? At 56 Buchanan is singing better than ever and he is one of the vocalists whose depth, timbre and phrasing can reduce the listener to a gibbering wreck. Check out the stellar concluding track "After dark" the longest song on the album and try to hold that lump in your throat. It is an exquisite mega highlight and the good news is that so many of the other tracks are its equal. For example in the lush melancholy of "Wedding party" and "Two children" Buchanan takes those simple life episodes and paints them against a sparse piano background. Yet there is much joy to be found here and Buchanan has spoken of "wilful innocence" not least in the way he articulates the contentment of simple pleasures "Summers on its way, like a millionaire" he postulates in a great mid point song. Buchanan admits that he wrote most of these songs late in the evening presumably with a nice dram or two to underscore the mood. Above all else this is late night music, a soundtrack to heartache, loss and despair but also love and grace. In the beautiful "I remember you" the haunting introduction of a simple trumpet in the background resonates as powerfully as any full scale band. Similarly the piano melody of "Half the world" dances around your head and seduces you. The one real change of mood comes in the nice instrumental "Fin de siecle" other than that the template rarely changes finding its emotional peak in the glorious tracks such as "My true country" and the uber powerful slow burn of "A movie magazine".

You can argue that the album is too stark; likewise you could plead for longer songs since many here could be extended. Equally some may find the mood too downbeat as the summer sun starts to peep out from behind the rain clouds, yet this is rare moment of emotional exquisite music for thinking and feeling adults. If you are not moved by it then this reviewer offers a small apology but frankly it is the best thing released this side of December 31st 2011. Graeme Thomson in a super review in the Independent argues "Mid Air" is a album "that manages to freeze-frame those moments of fleeting euphoria which elevate reality to something sublime". These are fine and true words indeed. On "Mid Air" Paul Buchanan, who has always been a fully paid up member of the song writing premier division, manages to ratchet his musical genius up a notch. With this album we should no longer resist in adding the name Buchanan to that exclusive list which includes such luminaries as Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon and Jackson Browne. We should also celebrate in Diamond Jubilee proportions what may be a fleeting return for a singer songwriter whose output is small but perfectly formed.