Paul Buchanan – “Mid-Air” (live performance)

Like Halley’s Comet, Glasgow’s the Blue Nile tend to come around so rarely it seems like they’re perpetually in a state of being discovered. Likewise for their occasional orbits, it’s tough to tell whether they’re genuinely preeminent, or just create a stir for being so mysterious.

Personally, with the exception of the timelessly sublime “Tinseltown in the Rain”, I’ve found myself leaving the Blue Nile more often than I’ve taken to them. However, “Mid-Air”, the lead single from head Nile man Paul Buchanan’s latest album of the same name, is justification alone for his four-year absence.

Like one of those occasional songs so perfect it immediately has you believe it must surely always have existed, forever playing in the background of your life but now everyone else can hear it too, when I first caught “Mid-Air” I lost complete track of time. Which, given how the song only just breaks two-minutes-30, is good ju-ju.

Buchanan might not have 99 problems or wanna get wit’ you, but I reckon if you give him a chance, “Mid-Air” will move you all the same.