John Bramwell (I Am Kloot) 

‘A unique person, both literally and metaphorically’ – Lauren Laverne
‘My favourite songwriter of all time’ – Cate Blanchett
‘Bramwell’s new songs are spellbinding’ The Guardian
‘The UK’s finest export’  New York Times

As the singer in I Am Kloot from 1999 to 2014, John Bramwell achieved a Mercury Prize nomination for 2010’s The Sky At Night, a Top 10 chart position for 2013’s Let It All In, numerous UK and European tours and a triumphant farewell at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with an orchestra in 2014. Now, as a solo artist, he’s travelling a very different path, his stunning new album The Light Fantastic is quite a change from his Kloot-days. Darker clouds have been banished, there are strings and four-part harmonies (a warming development, since Kloot never had any backing vocals) and a dozen gloriously exhilarating, beautifully crafted and observed songs about life, humanity, the universe and everything. As John puts it, “It’s been great to find the joy of making music once again. These are the most uplifting songs of my career.”

When Kloot ceased in 2014 – stopping playing together, rather than officially splitting up – he felt burned out, tired after years on the road. “I’d started to feel like an employee,” he says. “I just wasn’t functioning creatively. I wanted other experiences.” Initially, this took the form of extensive solo touring. Feeling reinvigorated and rejuvenated from the freedom of the industry, he played everywhere from an old German church run by hippies to villages nearby festivals he was playing too, travelling in an old Mercedes camper fan with his faithful dog Henry in the back. “The response was often like, ‘I can’t believe you’re playing in my village. Shouldn’t you be at the [Manchester] Apollo or somewhere?’” However, after hundreds of such shows – which produced a live album, Live 2016 and self-released solo debut, 2017’s Leave The Empty Spaces – 2020 brought lockdown and John suddenly wasn’t playing any gigs at all. “I went into a sort of slump,” he admits now. Feeling isolated and “financially and mentally under duress”, he poured everything into his music but far from the melancholy or dark album we might have expected, the guitars, drums, cello and lyrical and musical warmth are positively joyous. The singer admits he was partly writing songs to comfort himself in the new circumstance, but it wasn’t all that simple.

“When we were able to play I’d be driving around in the car with Dave, I’d be singing something and we’d get the phones out and start recording. These are not very conscious songs. I was just opening my mouth and singing, almost like a stream of consciousness. There was a real freedom in doing it that way.”The themes of travel and escape are found throughout The Light Fantastic. The album has been lovingly crafted by John Bramwell (guitar and lead vocals), Dave Fidler (bass, guitar, vocals, production and engineering), Andy Fidler (drums), Harriet Bradshaw (cello and vocals) and Alan Lowles (piano, keyboards and mixing). And the title track, The Light Fantastic? The term originating from John Milton’s 1645 L’Allegro [“Com, and trip it as ye go/On the light fantastick toe”] which gradually became “trip the light fantastic” meaning dancing has a more than careful latest owner in John Bramwell, 2025. “All very subconscious at first,” he says, “but then I used it to imply good times.” Indeed – and as we all know, sometimes the best weather comes after the storm. So get in the van with John, Henry and the band and trip, The Light Fantastic.