Roberts, David, ed. (2006). Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums (19thed.). Guinness World Records Limited. p.66. ISBN 978-1-904994-10-7. Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. Australian Chart Book. p.38. ISBN 0-646-11917-6. Like the later work of the like-minded, if dramatically dissimilar, Talk Talk – whose Mark Hollis once famously said, “Before you play two notes, learn how to play one note… and don’t play one note unless you’ve got a reason to play it” – the record embraces peace and quiet so much they’re virtually its central focus. Its poignant sentimentality, meanwhile, skilfully, solemnly swerves the saccharine. This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( September 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Buchanan and Bell toured England and Scotland in May and June 2006, followed by Scotland and Ireland in November 2006, billed as "Paul Buchanan sings the songs of the Blue Nile", refraining from simply calling themselves the Blue Nile as a mark of respect for Moore's absence. The band consisted of Buchanan on vocals and guitar, Bell on bass guitar and keyboards, Alan Cuthbertson and Brendan Smith on keyboards, Stuart McCredie on guitar, and Liam Bradley on drums. On 14 July 2007, Buchanan and Bell played at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester as part of the Manchester International Festival. In July 2008, the band played shows at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Somerset House in London and the Radisson Hotel in Galway.

People tend to flag up The Blue Nile’s Scottishness, as if geography and accidents of birth were responsible for artistic vision; but surely, again like Hopper, the dreams and tears here are universal. The city streets, cars, rooftops, rain, couples and love documented and expressed so delicately throughout the seven songs are potentially everywhere, any time, “caught up in this big rhythm”. This is why the band stood out then and hover above now; both everymen and angels. Five months later, though, they emerged from Castlesound, and – thanks to Buchanan’s deeply moving delivery, the band’s startlingly bare arrangements and an overall, undeniably fastidious attention to detail – it soon became clear that, despite only boasting seven songs, A Walk Across The Rooftops was going to have long legs.

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Their debut album, A Walk Across the Rooftops, arrived in 1984 via the stereo equipment company Linn, who were looking to expand their reach by starting a label. (“Linn weren’t a record company and we weren’t a band,” Buchanan would later reflect in Elliot J. Huntley and Edith Hall’s biography From a Late Night Train.) Still, their unusual working relationship allowed the members of the Blue Nile to record in Linn’s studios and operate without a strict deadline. As so often happens with our first brushes of love, the band chased this experience the rest of their career. No pressure and no expectations—a creative process they could be instinctive about. a b Murray, Robin (20 November 2012). "Tinseltown In The Rain: The Blue Nile". ClashMusic.com . Retrieved 10 March 2013. The most commonly told story [ citation needed] [18] about the Blue Nile is that in 1983 they were approached by a local hi-fi manufacturer, Linn Products, and asked to produce a song that would showcase the Linn equipment to best effect. Linn was so pleased with the resulting record that it offered the Blue Nile a contract to make a whole album, and set up its own record label specifically to release it.

a b c d e f g Thomson, Graeme (January 2013). "River of No Return". Uncut. London, England: IPC Media: 56–60. While their influence has long run deep, with outspoken fans including Vashti Bunyan, Phil Collins, and the 1975, to this day nothing sounds quite like Hats. The Blue Nile themselves never quite replicated it, opting for a loose, soulful atmosphere on 1996’s Peace At Last and a more sober approach for 2004’s High. Its closest companion is Paul Buchanan’s 2012 solo album Mid Air—a collection of near-demos on piano that further refined his sunken vignettes. “Tear stains on your pillow,” he sings in “Wedding Party,” “I was drunk when I danced with the bride.” The stories—as with most concerning the Blue Nile—are between the lines.

On The Go

Roberts, Chris (21 November 2012). "Review: The Blue Nile – A Walk Across the Rooftops Collector's Edition". BBC Music . Retrieved 12 April 2013. It’s like a miracle that has been turned into a marketing factor. I’m absolutely dumbfounded by it. Every record should be compared to silence – silence is perfect, what are you going to put on it?” Roberts, David, ed. (2006). Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums (19thed.). London, England: Guinness World Records Ltd. p.66. ISBN 978-1-904994-10-7.

To listen closely to the Blue Nile is to become a part of the scenery. In this way, Buchanan’s metaphor about the time between albums comes alive. The long gestation of each record suggests, as in the early stages of a relationship, a sharpening of the senses, getting lost in a world that’s getting smaller around you. You want to do it right this time. The Blue Nile’s music also sounds like falling in love, slow and starry-eyed, with melodies that fizzle and glow like streetlights. By the time they released their sophomore album, Hats, in the autumn of 1989, Buchanan was 33 years old, and his songs, once littered with bold declarations of love, now seemed to be composed entirely of ellipses and question marks. I turned to music because it was a way that you could get in touch with yourself,” Buchanan told Popmatters. “You could put two notes together and if it felt right to you, if it made you happy or sad, that was what mattered.” Read more: Album By Album – Sade Read more: Making The KLF’s The White Room McGalliard, James (15 December 2004). "An Ordinary Miracle". Inpress. Melbourne, Australia: Street Press Australia.In September 2010, a biography of the Blue Nile by the Scottish journalist Allan Brown, titled Nileism: The Strange Course of the Blue Nile, was published. Although Brown was a long-time acquaintance of Buchanan, he found Buchanan reluctant to participate, and both Bell and Moore refused Brown's invitations for interviews or any co-operation with the book's writing. [28] The last verse of Easter Parade…” says Calum Malcolm today, “isn’t that a bit of a moment?” If he’s wrong, that’s only because the entire song, built around little more than a piano, the slightest of electronic embellishments and wistfully nostalgic lyrics – “In the bureau typewriters quiet/ Confetti falls from every window” – is heart-stoppingly beautiful. “It’s a Sunday song, something with a stillness in it,” Buchanan told NME’s Richard Cook in May 1984. “It would be blasphemous of me to say it’s a holy song in any way, but that’s something that was in our minds.” Dominated by the melodies, mini-journeys, miracles and silence Buchanan would later identify as the very source of music’s alchemy, it’s more than just A Walk Across The Rooftops. It is, in fact, as Buchanan himself suggested it should be, “like being able to walk on air…” Read more: Deacon Blue interview Read more: Making Talk Talk’s The Colour Of Spring The Blue Nile: A Walk Across The Rooftops – The Songs