I Am Kloot ‎— Sky At Night (2010)

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I Am Kloot — Sky At Night
Location: Manchester, UK
Album release: July 5, 2010
Record Label: Shepherd Moon
Duration:     39:17
Tracks:
01. Northern Skies    (4:04)
02. To The Brink    (4:18)
03. Fingerprints    (4:33)
04. Lately    (3:56)
05. I Still Do    (3:04)
06. The Moon Is A Blind Eye    (4:08)
07. Proof    (2:51)
08. It's Just The Night    (3:00)
09. Radiation    (6:13)
10. Same Shoes    (3:11)
Personnel:
Instruments:
I Am Kloot:
• John Harold Arnold Bramwell
• Andy Hargreaves
• Peter Jobson
additional musicians:
• Prabjote Osahn – violin – tracks 1, 2 & 3
• Stella Page – viola – tracks 1, 2 & 3
• Margit van der Zwan – cello – tracks 1, 2 & 3
• Marie Leenhardt – harp – tracks 5 & 6
• Tony Gilfellon – guitar – track 2
• Bob Marsh – trumpet – tracks 2 & 10
• Peter McPhail – saxophone & flute – tracks 4, 9 & 10
• Colin McLeod – piano – track 10
• Norman McLeod – pedal steel guitar – track 10
others:
• Guy Garvey – string arrangements
Production and mixing:
• Guy Garvey & Craig Potter – production
• Craig Potter – mixing (at Blueprint Studios)
• Tim Young – mastering (at Metropolis Studios)
• Colin McLeod – additional production & engineering – track 10
• Seadna McPhail – additional engineering – tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 8 & 10
Artwork:
• Gerald Jenkins – band photography
• Paul Brownless – design
√ All songs written by John Bramwell. The line "we've got all the bullets, but there's no-one left to shoot” comes from "Oblivious" – a song by Aztec Camera.
The Japanese edition of Sky at Night includes additional track (#11) called "Black & Blue". The original version of this song appeared on You, Me and the Alarm Clock (1990) – a solo album by John Bramwell, then known as Johnny Dangerously.
Website: http://iamkloot.com/
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/iamklootmusic
BBC Review
Distils and expands their strengths, from elegant tunes to resolutely bittersweet lyrics.
Martin Aston 2010-06-30
√ In Klootworld, even the pub is world-weary – it’s called the Brink. And the Manchester trio have been propping up the bar for too long now. A decade, in fact, for the best-kept secret Up North since Elbow threw off the shackles of public apathy. It’s not been all frustrating, though; Germany loves them. Though the idea that the good folk of, say, Dusseldorf, prefer Kloot’s gruff, nail-bitten and quintessentially Northern song more than the British isn’t just bizarre, it’s alarming.
√ Can the trio’s fifth album, Sky at Night, change things? Guy Garvey, who produced Kloot’s 2001 debut album Natural History, returns to do the honours again, assisted by his Elbow bandmate Craig Potter, so fame by association could rub off. Proof, from 2003’s I Am Kloot, also returns, albeit re-recorded (though you’d never know), most likely because it was never official released as a single back then, despite a promo video starring Christopher Eccleston. The opening Northern Skies, however, is the new single, with another Eccleston cameo in the video. Fame by association again?
√ Clearly, frontman John Bramwell isn’t a man for turning. Sky at Night simply distils and expands all Kloot’s lovely strengths, from his taut, elegant tunes to resolutely bittersweet lyrics. “See the sand, the moon, the stars that shine a light and say / Well, they’ll do alright for me,” goes Northern Skies, but if Bramwell sometimes flirts with soap-opera sentiment, just like Garvey, you instinctively trust the sound of his expressive, swarthy croon.
√ So it’s business as usual, but even at this 10-years-plus juncture, Kloot still scale the heights, especially the ballads. The Moon Is a Blind Eye is as pale and silvery as moonlight, I Still Do is equally bare and heart-wrenching, and To the Brink (the aforementioned boozer, where, “there’s no rule of thumb, so on the counter I strum with my fingers / and I adore the surprise of tomorrow’s sunrise, so I linger”) has thin, weaving strings that lend a wistful 1940s charm – you can almost taste the cig smoke and amber ale. But Kloot can kick up the dust, too. Radiation’s suspenseful intro gives way to see-sawing strings and a blast of euphoria to rival Elbow’s One Day Like This, while soul-blues slowburner Lately features Garvey on gusty harmonies.
√ Really, if this lot can’t boost Kloot’s fortunes at home, they should give up or just move to Dusseldorf, whichever is less traumatic.
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Description:
√ "Following 2007's "I Am Kloot Play Moolah Rouge", the album further goes to cement John Bramwell’s status as one of the most talented songwriters in the country.
√ Proud Manchester men they may be, but the record is infused with an almost Parisian elegance. Tracks like ‘It’s Just The Night’ and ‘The Moon Is A Blind Eye’ reveal a Gainsbourg style of sophistication, but are still punctuated with their own inimitable Northern soul.
√ Opening with the warm, rolling "Northern Skies", it's followed by "To The Brink", a decadently faded show tune, with celestial strings balancing delicately against the kind of poignant musings more typically found at the bottom of a brandy glass.
√ The theatrical instrumentation of "Lately" is lush and impressive, whilst remaining explicit and honest. Renowned harpist Marie Lionheardt provides a delicate accompaniment to the moving narrative in "I Still Do", while "Radiation" touches upon the Beatles' more psychedelic moments of orchestration.
√ A songwriter's songwriter, Bramwell is one of our finest wordsmiths and counts Pete Doherty and Elbow's Guy Garvey amongst his many fans. Having produced their hugely acclaimed debut album "Natural History" Garvey, alongside bandmate Craig Potter, has returned to produce and mix this sublime ten track collection.
√ With "Sky at Night", expect Kloot's cult status to soar skywards."
√ Réup du cinquieme et magnifique album de ce groupe peu connu. Recommandé! Ne manque plus que le 4eme ("I Am Kloot Play Moolah Rouge") pour avoir la discographie studio complete du groupe proposée sur ce blog...
√ Note et conseil: Le plus souvent, je fais "silencieusement" les mises a jour des liens morts ou supprimés. Je vérifie prioritairement les liens pointant vers d'autres CDs d'une discographie lorsqu'une nouveauté apparaît (ex: les Strokes ont sorti un album, j'ai réUP les précédents...). N'hésitez donc pas a cliquer sur le tag en bas de post pour voir si il n'y a pas d'autres albums disponibles ...
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Review by: Alan Sargeant
√ You can’t polish a turd. Whoever said that? Were they onto something or were they just talking shit? The reality was always something we knew all along: the turd was quite happy feeling shit. When you’ve been unceremoniously squeezed out of someone’s arse and suffered the ignominy of being chewed up, absorbed and subjected to the usual slings and arrows of the exhausting digestive process, you’re unlikely to respond positively to the demands of civil society, style or no style. Turds bear the scars of everything we’ve been through – the biological equivalent of tree rings or glacial ice-cores – so the last thing you want to do is cover it up or sweeten it in any way. Get rid of all that smelly albuminous matter and all that microbial degradation and what's left? Pooh that isn't brown, isn't really pooh at all. So when we heard that the hugely talented Guy Garvey of Elbow had sweetened I Am Kloot’s signature brand of Northern misanthropy with bucketloads of strings and sweeping orchestral arrangements, we naturally feared the worst: if I Am Kloot were not reeking of last night’s beer and the crude philosophy of a thousand cigarettes, then they were not really I Am Kloot at all.
√ But we were wrong.
√ ‘Skt At Night’ packs in all the usual tales of quietly satisfying isolation, loathing and longing of metro bus routes, pub tap-rooms and rainy afternoons in Bolton and lays them against a starry, starrry sky of dazzling, epic proportions; not so much polishing a turd as putting it under strobe lights and inviting a throng of astonished pilgrims to behold it. Why stew in your own juices when you can saturate the whole unworthy world with them? It's the same old wounds, the same old pain but this time Bramwell's tears have a gravity and sense of purpose rarely seen outside of days of national mourning and 'Dancing On Ice' skate-offs.
√ It’s a wonderful and uplifting album, buzzing with poignancy, rattling with great tunes and shaking with the grim determination of an authentic delerium tremens sufferer.
Fortaken: http://www.2-4-7-music.com
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√ (2010, #24 UK, #51 NL, #59 AUT, #95 DEU)
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