THEY SAY THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAIL. Maybe, but god-like genius hangs out there, too. In a world that now seems to take notice only of melodramatic soundbites and grandiloquent gestures made against lurid, 2-D backdrops, I Am Kloot are a Harold Pinter real deal to everyone else’s overblown, Cecil B de Mille mock-ups. The rough ‘n’ tumble of realism is what makes Johnny Bramwell (singer/songwriter and guitarist), bass player Peter Jobson and drummer Andy Hargreaves tick. It’s the source of I Am Kloot’s misanthropic and surreal wit. When cut with their own brand of beat-up romanticism, it’s also what caused a girl to faint clean away during the band’s first gig outside Britain (in Paris on Valentine’s Day 2001) when she heard them play ‘Twist’.

“I Am Kloot is a little universe we’ve created- I Am Kloot is not a band, it’s a world. It’s an enigmatic one because it’s both brutal and charming. It’s ruthless and endearing, it’s full of contradictions and – it shifts across the sky like the weather.”