Mid Air

Mid Air is an extraordinarily intimate record, its spare piano and vocal-based arrangements unfurling at a meditative pace. Thirteen of its fourteen tracks are less than three minutes long, but rest assured all life is here. Buchanan's beautifully bruised voice remains a faithful conduit of all things emotive, and Mid Air was written from a place of humility and wee-small-hours contemplation. Says Paul: "i think if i'd tried to make a record that sounds like the band i'd be quite nervous, but this is more of a record-ette. it's quite small in stature and the songs are very brief, but don't get me wrong - it kept me awake at night."

Buchanan also concedes that, in some ways, he is "continually re-writing the same song", chipping away at the themes that have absorbed him from day one. 'far above the chimney tops / take me where the bus don't stop" he sings here on 'My True Country'. Naturally, such starry-eyed sentiments will chime with fans of the Blue Nile's charmed 1983 debut, A Walk Across the Rooftops. At root, these beautifully smudged miniatures represent a still more potent distillation of all that has made Buchanan's past work so special. Mid Air - his little 'record-ette' as he calls it - is wonderfully big of heart.