“The Blue who? Oh my God, I've never heard of them” Chris Martin, Coldplay

The Blue Nile - a trio with four albums in 20 years. Just one of those albums ever troubled the top 10 of the charts. None of their singles ever broke into the top 50.

They are also a group who may or may not still exist – they almost certainly don’t, but they never bothered to tell anyone.

So why are they possibly the greatest band you’ve never heard of?

On this week’s Sunday Show, John Fardy and Shane Coleman inducted The Blue Nile to the Cultural Toolbox, listening back on the synth-driven ambient sounds of the band's back catalogue while reflecting on a group whose mystery and scarcity of production have earned them an almost mythic devotion from their followers.

John played us three tracks, from their first two albums – the works still considered to be their most credible claim to genius.

• Tracks from The Cultural Toolbox

Tinsel town in the rain – A Walk Across the Rooftops (1984)

Let’s go out tonight – Hats (1989)

Headlights on the Parade – Hats (1989)

Founded in Glasgow in 1981, the trio was comprised of Paul Buchanan, vocalist and primary songwriter, Robert Bell and Paul Joseph Moore.

The Blue Nile created a sound grounded in stories of Glasgow’s back streets and brought into being with heavy synthesizers and personal, reflective emotion embodied in the distinctive voice of Buchanan.

The group’s hunt for perfection led them to spend anything from five to eight years between the releases of sub-40 minute records. One critic once remarked that “The Blue Nile do virtually nothing, very slowly.”

Of these rare releases there are works honoured as some of the finest work of the 80s, with second album Hats named in the ‘Top 100 Greatest British Albums Ever’ by Q.

The group’s end mirrored the way they had lived. There was no punch up, no volcanic screaming match, no definitive moment of the end. Rather, the group drifted apart, they stopped organising rehearsals, stopped contacting each other. To this day there’s never been an official announcement to formally bookend their long, sparsely populated career.

Years later, The Guardian noted that "the band that famously never did anything in a hurry fell apart in slow motion."

Listen to The Cultural Toolbox, as John Fardy and Shane Coleman induct and remember The Blue Nile:

The Blue Nile discography:

• A Walk Across the Rooftops (1984)

  UK chart peak: 80

  Singles: Stay, Tinseltown in the rain

• Hats (1989)

  UK chart peak: 12

  Singles: The Downtown Lights, Headlights on the Parade, Saturday Night

• Peace at Last (1996)

  UK chart peak: 13

  Singles: Happiness

• High (2004)

  UK chart peak: 10

  Singles: I Would Never