According to the band's Facebook site, "The solo album has been recorded 2 years ago." !

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?section...orycode=1048306

Intriguing! Looking forward to it...if and when it appears.

Paul Buchanan's album is called 'Mid-Air'

What is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjLKnHRFghs&feature=related

It is mentioned in the book 'Nileism' toward the end that Paul has recorded a 19 track song suite with one of the other chaps from Blue Nile. The time of recording that would tie in with being around two years ago so perhaps it is this that we can expect. It would also be good to hear some (about 2) of the songs performed live like 'Runaround Girl' which I presume were written post-'High'. However with the Blue Nile related things can get unpredictable so we can really just be happy that something; whatever that may be seems to be genuinely on the horizon.

It is also mentioned in 'Nileism' that should another Blue Nile album appear it would be followed by a programme of reissues and release of archive material (b-sides etc) As a Blue Nile album seems to be increasingly unlikely and so Pauls album is the equivalent we may be able to have some hope that this could also happen.

Any hey, I am sure many Sprout fans like me are looking forward greatly to whatever Paul has to offer!

I remember something about the album being acoustic piano and vocals only,both by Paul Buchanan.

I think the song suite was part of this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre...stival-365.html

Here's a excerpt from one of the songs https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150338249838855

Seriously something to look forward to.

That guy Mr Sherco has uploaded a lot of PB/Blue Nile B-sides, demos and work with other artists on Youtube.

Seasons of the Light is beautiful, recorded (with Silent Night) for what looks like a kind of alt-Christmas album. So is St Katherine's Day - a demo I think. Things That We Should Say seems to be one of two tracks on an album by Quiet City - Public Face, Private Face - along with Due North. Regret is absolutely awesome - I didn't know it, an early B side apparently. Some others are cool, like Wish Me Well. Somehow every Blue Nile song sounds the same; yet every song sounds different and unique. I don't quite understand it, but it is one long slow flow of beauty - so who cares? Awesome.

A Walk Across The Rooftops

Here is a blue nile blog/discography wot i wrote a few weeks ago, it has most of the b-sides & 'hard- to - get' songs. ;)

Thanks, Rock!

Here's another beauty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMN6P1dbsag

Really looking forward to a new record by PB,in the wake of nothing from Paddy it will sorta make it a 'good year' for music for me..here's a quote by PB on the new record : "The key thing for me is to try and capture those little elements of humanity. It doesn't matter where you live; if you hear an ambulance you go to the window and hope that it's not coming for someone you know." It's reassuring in a ever changing world that he still has his Scottish bon vie.. ;)

Apparently it will be released May 21st :

http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/music/popmusi...nan-231914.html

Thanks turbo.."It will be available digitally, on CD (catalogue no: Room01) & limited edition 180 gram vinyl (catalogue no: RoomLP01) " back o' the net!

'My True Country' - Paul Buchanan http://youtu.be/lw_Hkoqu6Rw

Download it with a donation at http://paulbuchanan.com/

Cheers James L! just pre ordered the vinyl from the PB link,it's a limited 1000 pressing etc anyone wanting one should get in sharpish

Looking at the PB site the 'limited edition' box cd has a extra 10 tracks that will be unavailable anywhere else. At £26 it's not cheap,and really it's getting fans to pay more for the extra songs than the cost of the official cd.Of course I would rather have the tracks released than not but how are we to take the new release,e.i is the new album in two parts at £26 or are the extra tracks just a carrot for the fans who have been hanging on in there for years.any thoughts ? :huh:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01f8...y_Paul_Buchanan

Interview with PB on monday's show (around 1:35 into the programme).

My True Country is a lovely song, but it is a bit "One Day Like This". Basically same tune as the verse

You can listen to the title song here:

http://www.directcurrentmusic.com/music-ne...an-mid-air.html

Nice. Very nice.

http://soundcloud.com/paul-buchanan-music/...n-interview-and

Paul B on Jools' radio show. Good interview + three songs from the album (as well as them singing Norwegian Wood in the studio.)

cheers LP.I agree,this is a good interview. Jools Holland also comes across well,not his usual manic style.He even refrained from insisting on dueting on a boogie-woogie piano version of 'From A Late Night train' ;)
But seriously when Paul discussed his influences of Beatles,Jimmy Webb,Marvin Gaye and Giacomo Puccini it instantly made me think of Paddy.

Yes, same thing for me.

And you're right about Jools - but a boogie woogie would have been interesting.

("Do I love you? Dobedobedoo... Yes I love you..." etc)

Paul B is performing on Later With Jools Holland tonight on BBC2 at 10pm and repeated on Friday.

No disrespect to Paul Buchanan, but: The act of actually recording, releasing and performing new material seems somewhat crass in comparison to the artistic subtlety of the eternally unfullfilled promise.

Yes, that is a striking similarity!

Great interview with Stuart Maconie, as well:

http://soundcloud.com/paul-buchanan-music/...-interview-with

Ha! Some scattergun-thoughts on that before I get back to work...


I don't know what spirit you intended the remark - the tone of this place always seems a little snide to me so I find it hard to gauge - but if meant straightforwardly at all, or even in jest, I don't quite agree. I think Paul Buchanan comes across a little like a parallel universe version of Paddy McAloon in which the pros of this sort of artistic artitude tend to outweigh the cons. Buchanan has made fans wait much longer than McAloon at times, and has sometimes disappointed - High is a good album, but it's not quite at the level of the others. But it's better to have a good album than none.


I like what Stuart Maconie said about reverence in pop music being a little over the top sometimes. Also smiled at Buchanan's reply that the band had lightened up a little, too. After the first rather poker-faced album (which is perhaps my favourite, so it's not a criticism), Prefab Sprout were often much lighter than The Blue Nile in spirit, with their oiled musclemen and walking hot-dog videos, paisley waistcoats, cowboy schtick, and significantly more kids-TV-friendly approach. Maconie ribs Buchanan for his endless self-promotional stunts and remix albums, for example - but despite the mystique of Paddy McAloon, hermit, recluse and critical darling, you couldn't make the same joke about him. There have been remixes, Jimmy Nail, a Kylie cover, Cher, so it doesn't quite work. And yet Buchanan does have his own website and has released music independently via that.

I think Buchanan's approach shows that there is a solid and respectable middle ground Paddy McAloon could take if he so chose. Writing for Jimmy Nail or appearing on Going Live! now look a little cringeworthy, and I doubt there's anything nearly as cringeworthy in Buchanan's poptastic career. But nothing McAloon has done to further his career violates or invalidates the beauty of Elegance or Desire As or I Remember That - they still stand. Doing what Buchanan has done, ie releasing his music himself via a website, is not the equivalent of being on Facebook chat 24 hours a day on his iPhone. It's not even the equivalent of the promotion McAloon did in the 80s and 90s.

What Buchanan's done is made a short album on his own terms, under his own name, apparently with very little instrumentation and production-knobbery, just voice and piano - which I like the sound of, because one advantage is it won't date in the same way. I need to listen to the songs a few more times to get inside them, but so far I'm liking them. The idea of the album reminds me of the Steve McQueen acoustic versions in some ways, but of course Buchanan has done it with new material and moved on. It's also reminiscent of Megahertz, of course, an album that in some ways now looks ahead of its time: one can easily imagine that sort of album being produced and marketed and distributed now in the way Buchanan is doing with Mid Air.

Much of this has to do with McAloon's own health, of course - let's not underestimate that he was impaired in both eyesight and hearing, and I think still is in the latter. So even if he really wanted to, going on Jools Holland might be out of the question. And McAloon and Buchanan are of course different artists in many ways, and different people, and that can't be changed by exhortation from someone on the internet. I'm thinking aloud, simply. There are similarities between them, and it's striking that Buchanan is so uncrass in being able to occasionally record, release and perform new music. Which was perhaps your point anyway!

iPlayer link to last night's show..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01gk...s_40_Episode_1/

I can't speak for Rae but I think that, along with enthusiasm at the idea of artists being able to circumvent fickle commercial interests, there is a queasiness over the notion of independentely, internet released material, which I can understand. It seems like it ghettoises artists and further fragments any circulation of new music. It takes some of the public energy out of the engagement with music; without the bustle of the market place there's a distinct question of relevance. The internet is an experimental space in terms of developing ideas and trying to gain notice, but it still feels like a stepping stone to greater things rather than an end in itself - at least in terms of traditional art forms. Maybe that stigma stems from an outmoded way of thinking, but I can certainly understand why some people might feel both grateful at the prospect of new material, and a bit underwhelmed, suspicious that the real stuff, no matter how awful, is happening elsewhere and they've been left indulging someones vanity project.

Anyway, I'm sure Rae was getting at something else. :lol:

Not being snide, but so what? So has everybody else on the internet. I'm not sure that having a creative team behind you, whether that's partly a record company or not, is always a bad thing. Funnily enough, most record companies have been progressively adopting a hands off appraoch with their artists. Partly cost cutting I guess, but most record companies are just glorified distribution networks now. I'm not sure that's always healthy.

I would note that this PB album is having a full release with loads of 'choice' coverage, how many artist's can pull off a Jools Holland appearance without major record co backing.The album is coming out on proper mastered vinyl,the dreaded box set etc,it's hardly a cottage industry 'who gives a shit' release.

In terms of Jools Holland appearances, quite a few bands without major label backing perform on the show – isn’t that part of its appeal? But, yes, I accept that Buchanans album is hardly a case of ‘random bloke releases album into cyberspace’ – of course, a large part of that is predicated on the critical cache and major label history of The Blue Nile. ‘Who gives a shit’, or 'who cares?', was in reference to Green Jeremy’s comment that the album was made on Buchanans own terms, the suggestion being, I think, that this is unquestionably a good thing. It followed on from the question of artists developing online based cottage industries (and Buchanans release sound exactly that).

*stabbed into my keyboard using knives, with an unimaginable fury and malicious intent at 12:02, 18.4.2012.* ;)

The main danger with self produced or crowdsourced albums, even for the uniquely talented, is that you can engage a large fanbase of self obsessed marginal self harmers who think the acme of creativity is to plunk out a few chords on a ukelele and use derivatives of the word fuck a lot on twitter to demonstrate their edginess.

I am thinking here specifically of Amanda Palmer. Who is uniquely talented, probably the best live performer I've seen for years, but whose self produced work is arguably drifting to the indulgent side of things now where her record company influenced Dresden Dolls material was razor sharp. Sycophancy is a sticky syrup to swim out of.

You could also pull out Martin Stephenson in this regard. He's had an interesting latter career on basically fan funded activities and small scale projects, a brilliant performer but rather drifting into self parody. And then he just did a decent tour with a real promoter playing reasonable sized venues, and it's all sort of come back into real focus.

.

My remark was more satircal than serious. I was thinking how one hypothetically could find fault in someone releasing music, and I myself found the word "crass" funny in that context.

PB probably found a way re: releasing and performing material which works for him (and his fans?), whereas Paddy McAloon hasn't found that way at all. That in a way is troubling, and to me a troubling situation becomes a little less troubling when you poke fun at it.

At the same time, I've found myself thinking that it's like Paddy McAloon has been working on a great and complicated piece of situationist art over the last decade, meaning his musings and stories about unreleased albums and current plans. It might have been involuntarily. But his monologues about music which no one but him has ever heard have triggered more mental images and emotional reactions than a lot of music which actually exists.

Sorry, I'm travelling, I'll get back into this later.

Yes. Setting their sights on the big bad world, rather than an established little community of fans, seems to focus artists. That probably applies as much to writers and painters as musicians. I wonder if Paddy feels the same way, whether his fantasy needs something like the fat record company guy chompin' on the cigar saying "knock'em dead kid" to get his blood going (faintly homoerotic but hey).

No artist worth listening to would try and exclude anyone,or go for a 'cult' audience.
Similarly popularity on the internet should be taken with a pinch of salt.Justin Beiber has 10's of millions of hits on Youtube,but I have yet to talk to a kid who does't think he is not a complete jerk..

It's pretty easy to guess what's going on with Paddy anyway. Every time he's put his balls on the block and explained how great his material is, the public has come along with a lump hammer and thumped away joyously. Assuming his ego is still in some sort of working order, he's going to have a serious pain reflex attached to putting himself in any way in the public eye. Far easier not to take the risk of actual rejection, and to use probable rejection as an excuse for never trying.

It'd be nice if someone pointed out the rise in price of Megahertz these days to him - going rate is about thirty quid now. That's not cult appeal, that's genuine appreciation from a wider market for what he did.

I was talking to one of the guys who wrote the Martin Stephenson bio this weekend, and he had written to Paddy to ask for an interview. The reply that came back was "sorry, it's too painful for me even to think of those days now, let alone be interviewed about them".

Really? I got the impression people were fairly accepting of Paddy’s playful hyperbole. Weren't LCTWWM and ITTMH fairly successful critically?

Ouch. Kind of confirms other information that’s been going around on here.

Paddy chose 'God Bless You Kid' as his favourite Blue Nile song in one radio interview and i think the lyric
have some resonance :

"I drive all over town
To the bars without a name
And it feels like Memphis after Elvis
There's nothing going on
When you get to the top
Does it all work out
You wanna start again
With hope in your heart"

Well, having heard 'Boat To Bolivia' I don't blame Paddy.

You make some good points overall,but I must say that:

1) I don't find the Jimmy Nail collaborations cringeworthy

2) Kylie and Cher doing covers is not a problem at all in my book

and

3) Buchanan's been involved in many collaborations over the years - for example recording with Texas and giving a song to Sporty Spice, i.e. (Just to mention a couple that aren't that far from Paddy's Cher & Kylie connection).

EDIT: Actually a version of "Soul Boy" was first recorded by a polish singer, but I do remember an interview with Mel C where she talked about Paul Buchanan, so I don't believe she just heard the polish singer.

Sure, but I don't see a significant difference between the reception Mid Air has had so far and what would have happened if it had been released by a major label, especially considering it's a solo album, only half an hour or so long and consists entirely of short songs with just voice and piano. He's already been interviewed on 6 Music by Stuart Maconie and on Jools Holland's Radio 2 show, and performed on the latter's TV show. That's exactly what you'd expect would have happened if a major label had released it, too. It's still early days: the album won't be released until late May so we'll see what happens. But it won't surprise me at all if it is reviewed by Q, Mojo, The Guardian, The Telegraph and/or The Times, precisely as it would have been if Universal subsidiary Sanctuary had released it (as they did High) or Warner Bros (Peace at Last). I expect there will also be at least one broadsheet interview with him, too. Buchanan is also releasing it physically, which makes a difference, and it's for sale on Amazon and elsewhere.

I'm extrapolating from that to say that, in an ideal world, I can see this approach working for Paddy McAloon, if he chose to pursue it. Like Buchanan, he is a criticially acclaimed British songwriter from a band that was largely his baby, that had significant gaps between records, etc. Obviously there are other issues, such as his desire not to perform, but I thought it was interesting. I'm not sure Blue Nile fans would view Mid Air as a vanity project or the concept of it underwhelming - I think they'll be delighted there's a new record out, preorder it online, and judge it on the strength of the material. There doesn't seem an enormous leap between this and I Trawl The Megahertz and Let's Change The World With Music in terms of scale or approach - there's already a one-man band home studio aesthetic in McAloon's most recently released work.

I don't think it is always healthy, either. Yes, lots of people on the internet have made albums on their own terms, and those albums are often rubbish. The interesting thing is that Paul Buchanan has done it, and he is a brilliant songwriter and singer, in my view. I don't know enough about the history of The Blue Nile, but I'm pretty sure Linn left them much to their own devices - it doesn't look like they were under a great deal of time pressure, for instance! Neither does it strike me as being all that relevant what creative team Buchanan has behind him. The other band members, producers, record company, etc, would all have been important to the earlier records, but I don't think that means he can't create a great album by himself. They were never a chart-topping band, and were always primarily about the songs. The songs I've heard from it so far impressed me, and didn't have the ring of 'some bloke off the internet's vanity project' at all. They sound like beautiful new Paul Buchanan songs, and I look forward to getting to know them and the other songs a lot better.

Again, my point is that - if Paddy McAloon were up to it, or could be persuaded into it - I think this sort of approach could suit him. It's unfussy, minimal. He's a perfectionist, and has spoken before about the difficulties in dealing with others in the studio when he wants his own thing. Now, that could backfire and perhaps create something totally up itself but somehow I doubt it, from the evidence of Let's Change and Megahertz. So in a fantasy world, I suppose I'm imagining that someone could arrange a meeting with him and say, 'Look, here's what I want to do. I'll set up a classy, simple but very up-to-the-minute website, paddymcaloon.com. I'll set up a deal so that we can print physical albums and get them in high-street shops, on Amazon, iTunes (it's a shop online) and everywhere else that matters. I'll sort out cover art, and you can have full input and approval, of course. I'll set up interviews with Stuart Maconie and several broadsheets. It'll be played on Radio 2 and other stations. If you felt up to it, and only if you felt up to it, of course, I reckon I could get you on Jools Holland's show. Just you and a piano, or you and a guitar, singing a couple of songs. You'll be reviewed in the music press and broadsheets, just like you've always been. It'll be out there, and will make you some money, rather than sitting on these old tapes and clogging up your hard drive. All you need to do is pick 10 songs from your files, ones you really like. Let's not overthink it, let's not try to make it a concept album or worry about it too much or over-mystify and over-play it. Let's think simple. You've got hundreds of songs here. Just pick 10 you haven't got sick of and like. You don't need to go anywhere, I've got some very good equipment that is unobtrusive and can catch everything in amazing quality. We'll do it in a day. Just your voice and your guitar, or if you fancy a piano. No messing about with loads of takes and overdubs and taking it to meetings and all that. Just the songs you want to sing, sung simply, recorded superbly, released well. We can do it this week and it will start making you a bit of money two months from now. You can do the interviews on the phone. We can play it however you want it, but my point is that this isn't healthy, you're getting sucked into a vortex with all this unreleased material. You've got in a bit of a rut, and I want you to get out of it. I also want others to hear some of this extraordinary beautiful music, and I think deep down you do, too. You were pleasantly surprised by Let's Change The World...'s reception. Let's build on it, and let's get rid of all this mind-clutter and get you back into a position where you're more on top of things, and can control your own creative powers and the way you present them. I've loved your music since I was 15 years old, and can help you do this. There's nothing to be scared of, and everything to gain. What do you say?'

And Paddy would say 'Yes, let's do it.'