The Blue Nile

To complete their reissue programme The Blue Nile again worked alongside long term producer / engineer partner Calum Malcolm. High is the fourth studio album by The Blue Nile, originally released on 30 August 2004 on Sanctuary Records. Paul Buchanan still sings his songs of faded love affairs, broken dreams and squandered ambitions with almost painful emotional candor, while the musical backings are as lush and flowing as ever. In the manner of Talk Talk's Mark Hollis or Jackie Leven, Paul Buchanan's distressed utterances exude a downcast but romantic spirituality, mining a rich blue seam of fatigued detachment from the diaphragm upwards while somewhere in the background pianos, electronic drums and subtle acoustic guitars pulse inconspicuously and yet with all the assurances of a heart steadily beating inside the chest. Eavesdropping on restaurant conversations, gazing at passing cars, looking at "the morning people going to work and fading away" is the stuff of cold, terminal exclusion but High is beautifully warm, offering the uncluttered quiescent orderliness of sonic Feng Shui for the soul.