LITTLE ECHOES 7.30 and the power came on at, say, five to latest advert for The Gap. All too aware that it’s Given High’s problematic gestation, then, seven, and I was so frustrated at having tricky to describe the qualities The Blue Nile listeners should not be surprised by the wasted the whole day I didn’t go to the continue to search for without sounding “assertive” moments that crop up throughout dinner. I stayed in the studio and the song overly precious, Buchanan is adamant that the the album – nor the references to their earlier kind of blurted out.” desire for more involving culture – be it music, work, heard most prominently on the Less characteristically,‘Because of Toledo’ movies or books – remains strong:“It just feels Rooftops-echoing ‘Days Of Our Lives’. nods towards an older songwriting model, its otherwise because [the same messages] are A palpable case of quality over quantity, The Blue Nile have weathered record company politics and internal strife to produce “That was how it emerged, but it was loose montage of Raymond Carver-esque pushed in your face every time you switch on High, their first album for eight years. Leader Paul Buchanan tells David Davies about the bravery required to scrap months pleasing in that it’s got something of the of work, the struggle to remain true to your values, and why songwriting is really not so different from sheep-herding... resilience of the first record about it,” admits “There were many things where I just thought, Buchanan.“We were all keen on the song, and aul Buchanan, the singer and chief to recapture the intangible magic that had The return to their roots that followed the the fact that it referred aurally to A Walk Across This is actually holding up the process now. songwriter of The Blue Nile, is infused their first two albums, A Walk Across the more guitar-based Peace At Last (1996) was the Rooftops just gave it a tidy stamp of It’s like a footballer doing too many fashion ads – P attempting to explain just how you Rooftops (1983) and Hats (1989). Still one of the not without its drama – not least, a reprisal of approval in our very finite world.” piece years of on-and-off work into most original debuts to be released by an act the pre-Hats episode that saw them scrap a More noticeable still is the increased it starts to disrupt the football.” something quite as coherent as the band’s affected in even the slightest way by the vagaries whole batch of songs.“It wasn’t the most confidence of Buchanan’s vocals, which defy scenes unified by the notion of Toledo as a your computer or sit on a bus and look at the new album, High. Fortunately, he has an of pop, Rooftops was a highly visual piece of pleasant of decisions,” admits Buchanan,“but gravity at several points during the album, not semi-mythical idyll for all those pictured within. adverts.The same things get shoved at you all unlikely analogy to hand. work, its combination of judicious atmospherics it just wasn’t working. And I would love to least on ‘Broken Love’ – a climactic piece in “I’m delighted that you’re saying a semi- the time – there’s a club and you’re not in it. “It’s kind of like keeping your sheep and Buchanan’s surging vocals – best captured pretend that they were hidden treasures, but the mould of ‘Headlights On the Parade’,and mythical place because that’s what it was to ‘Are you embarrassed by your ringtone?’ I together – you go running after whichever on ‘’– evoking the traffic- they weren’t.You know, we’re just gentlemen resolved with an exultant instrumental coda. me. I heard someone saying ‘because of Toledo’ mean, what??” one has wandered down the hill,” he says. clogged, rain-lashed vistas of their hometown, amateurs, really.They “We had been in a studio all day and there in a café in America, and then I went home and In their own gentle, diffident way,The Blue “You go after it and then get halfway up the .The beautifully-measured follow- weren’t up to scratch, was a power cut, and we were supposed to it just seemed to take its own shape.” Nile are there to mark out a different space.“I hill, then you look and see another one has up, Hats – the result of five trepidatious and that’s it.” leave the studio to meet could never say you have to listen to it wandered off. So you get that and bring it up, years of work that saw them ditch an someone for a meal,” recalls ON MESSAGE, OFF MESSAGE differently... but not everything is crashing and then two of them move up the hill and entire album – was arguably even Buchanan of the song’s Exquisite and emotionally resonant, High will drums and riffs. I’ve no patience with the you think, Right, I’d better get the other ones better: a seven-song cycle touching on origination.“We were not be an easy sell for new label Sanctuary in keynote artefacts that crop in music over and up there. I was almost going to say you end futile romances and the need for meant to go at seven or an era when the prevalent assumption seems over again.You’re supposed to have a certain up driving your sheep into the corral. I can’t reassurance, culminating in the to be that the listener’s attention span for new kind of reverb on the drums on a dance even get my wildlife right now!” emotional release brought by music is only marginally longer than the record, and so on – it seems to me to be Any zoological oversights can be forgiven, ‘Saturday Night’. reducing our senses and reducing the not least because Paul Buchanan has spent a experiences that we can have.” good portion of the eight years since Peace At “Obviously if I stand up in the pub or Last simply trying to keep the band together. whatever and say,What I believe is, I might as By Buchanan’s own admission, the period in well put my head in the noose,” laughs which that album emerged was not the Buchanan.“Because it’s yeah yeah, whatever, happiest for all concerned. Signed to you’re pretentious. It smacks of people who, to a major label (Warners) then too some extent, are just not interested in the embroiled in a corporate same things as you. Somehow they don’t shakedown to pay full attention to want to concede that that dimension exists to such a tender artefact as a Blue Nile album, our consciousness – they don’t live like that, the trio – Buchanan, bassist Robert Bell and people don’t feel like people in Raymond keyboard player Paul Joseph Moore – began Carver stories, and it’s not about that level of to question exactly where they had ended up. detail and that level of the subconscious. But “We had a little bit of a rough patch,” it is, for a lot of people.” admits Buchanan, softly spoken and modest It is The Blue Nile’s willingness to seek out to a fault.“We’re notoriously polite people, this very quality that continues to make their and we had to publicly represent the work work so special. Buchanan concludes:“We’ve and just try and co-operate with done it from scratch instinctively in the hope everybody – and eventually it that if we do something that’s free of our got very difficult.There personalities to some extent, and free of any were many things where I techniques that we might have in other areas just thought,This is of life, we’ll stumble across something more actually holding up the honest and more true.” process now. It’s like a High is fresh validation of this approach. footballer doing too Long may they continue to stumble. many fashion ads – it starts to disrupt the football.” High is released by Sanctuary on August 30th – Label-less once more and a full review will appear in the next issue of looking for a unifying goal after several TotalMusic. It is preceded by the single, traumatic years,The Blue Nile began a search ‘I Would Never’,on August 23rd. (Left to Right) Robert Bell, Paul Buchanan, Flossy, Paul Joseph Moore Design and Layout by Cat’s Eye Creative Services Ltd. www.catseyecreative.com