The Blue Nile (Paul Buchanan, Robert Bell and Paul Joseph Moore) will release a remastered version of their 1996 album ‘Peace At Last’ on the Virgin EMI label via UMC on 3rd March ‘14. ‘Peace At Last’ has been digitally remastered by Robert Bell and Paul Buchanan with The Blue Nile’s original engineer Calum Malcolm, and will be released in a special double pack with a bonus CD of previously unreleased rarities.

“We made the record based, to some extent, on a guitar we found. By extension, we also used an old organ and a cheap sequencer. We married this approach with a string orchestra on "Family Life" and an amateur choir on "Happiness". We recorded much of the record ourselves on tape. The idea, for better or worse, was to make an earthier record. Robert rightly said to a journalist that, despite the references to God on the record, it is the most secular of the records we have made.

On reflection maybe this was the most autobiographical record too. We didn't set the personal against the city backdrop…we wanted hands, and the lines on hands and on faces. We wanted it to be human, and to reflect the doubtful "Peace At Last" gained through tribulation and work and love.

On the remixes, we have gone back and treated the songs as we might previously have done - so they are a hybrid, a look at that source material but with a different perspective, and a different goal: we reintroduced another dimension or skyline; the same goes for the unreleased songs: they are halfway between what we were doing then and what we did before and after.”

The full tracklisting of the album is as follows:

Disc One: Digitially Remastered Album

Happiness

Tomorrow Morning

Sentimental Man

Love Came Down

Body And Soul

Holy Love

Family Life

War Is Love

God Bless You Kid

Soon

Disc Two: Bonus Tracks

Soon (Laurel Canyon Mix)

War Is Love (New Vocal mix)

Turn Yourself Around

Holy Love (Picture Mix)

A Certain Kind Of Angel (Unreleased Demo)

There Was A Girl

The Blue Nile have released four albums – A Walk Across The Rooftops (1984), Hats (1989), Peace At Last (1996) and High (2004).

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY ABOUT THE BLUE NILE

“…epic electronic soul music.” The Arts Desk, 4 Nov ‘12

“…its hopeful melancholy transcends its era like an Edward Hopper painting….Paul Buchanan’s enraptured voice and words capture the essence of hearts breaking and healing as well as anyone outside Tamla Motown’s heyday.” Chris Roberts, bbc.co.uk Dec ‘12

“…absolutely mesmerizing, minimal classics that are about as emotive as good pop music ever gets…” Rolling Stone 22 Jan ‘13

“While so much mid-80s pop now seems as sophisticated as shoulderpads, the music of The Blue Nile seems more impressive than ever….richer, deeper, conjuring from late night trains and ordinary girls, torch songs Sinatra or Scott Walker might have appreciated.” Uncut Dec ‘12

“…exquisite music for the small hours in which little is said but much is revealed.” Q Jan ‘1