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UID:da8a9ab8-077f-44ee-a2e2-587fe0546a9a@360exp.net
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DTSTAMP:20260815T205744
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260913T185000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260913T185000
SUMMARY:John Bramwell
LOCATION:Coatbridge The Georgian Hotel
DESCRIPTION:- We are delighted to welcome back the wonderful iconic songwr
 iter John Bramwell\, of Mercury Prize winning band I Am Kloot\, to 50rpm f
 or two intimate up close & personal shows after last year's wonderful sold
 -out performance.For tickets for the 12th September\, click HERE.** Please
  note we have a no talking policy when the acts are performing. If that is
  something you can't manage\, our gigs are not for you. We prefer to let t
 he music do the talking **"There's a line in the E.E. Cummings poem 'Somew
 here I Have Never Travelled\, Gladly Beyond' which goes 'No one\, not even
  the rain\, has such small hands' which I paraphrased to 'Nothing can wash
  this away\, not even the rain' –– I've always loved that imagery and 
 intrigue... I've never been a realist\, the magic and mystery is where my 
 heart lies and where my mind wonders..."As the singer in I Am Kloot from 1
 999 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\, num
 erous UK and European tours and a triumphant farewell at the Queen Elizabe
 th Hall with an orchestra in 2014. Now\, as a solo artist\, he's travellin
 g a very different path\, his stunning new album The Light Fantastic is al
 most a complete U-turn from his Kloot-days. Darker clouds have been banish
 ed\, there are strings and four-part harmonies (a warming development\, si
 nce Kloot never had any backing vocals) and a dozen gloriously exhilaratin
 g\, beautifully crafted and observed songs about life\, humanity\, the uni
 verse 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 care
 er.”When Kloot ceased in 2014 - stopping playing together\, rather than 
 officially splitting up - he felt burned out\, tired after years on the ro
 ad. “I'd started to feel like an employee\,” he says. “I just wasn't
  functioning creatively. I was 50 and wanted other experiences.” Initial
 ly\, this took the form of extensive solo touring. Feeling reinvigorated a
 nd rejuvenated from the freedom of the industry\, he played everywhere fro
 m 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 d
 og 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 E
 mpty Spaces - 2020 brought lockdown and John suddenly wasn't playing any g
 igs at all. “I went into a sort of slump\,” he admits now. “I realis
 ed I'd created a little world away from reality. So when that finished it 
 hit me harder than I expected.” There were harder\, more personal blows 
 too.. His parents having divorced when he was younger\, by 2020\, his fath
 er had been ill for 15 years and died just before the pandemic struck. The
 n when the singer's mother had dementia and became terminally ill he wasn'
 t allowed to see her.Feeling isolated and “financially and mentally unde
 r duress”\, he poured everything into his music but far from the melanch
 oly or dark album we might have expected\, the guitars\, drums\, cello and
  lyrical and musical warmth are positively joyous. The singer admits he wa
 s 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 aroun
 d 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 op
 ening my mouth and singing\, almost like a stream of consciousness. There 
 was a real freedom in doing it that way.” He'd first experienced this wa
 y of writing for Meet Me At The Station\, the last track on Leave The Empt
 y Spaces\, which was literally penned at a station\, with the dog\, waitin
 g for a train. “He turned to look at me and bang\, I just had it and sta
 rted singing it to him there and then. Then later for the middle verse I h
 ad to make it into a full song\, but that was it.The themes of travel and 
 escape are found throughout The Light Fantastic. The wonderfully delicate 
 opener Leave Not Traces has an instantly memorable guitar riff and shades 
 of Vegas era Elvis\, Neil Diamond and late 60s Glen Campbell. The first wo
 rds on the album are “Maybe I'll get away from this...” “That's me a
 nd Dave getting in the car and again it was completely subconscious”\, J
 ohn explains. The second track A World Full Of Flowers is as joyous as any
 thing on the album and again has a spirit of nowhere in particular - as lo
 ng as it's a happy place. The lush melodic vocal harmonies over a Beck sou
 nding syncopated drum loop\, atmospheric Fleet Foxes soundscapes and hand 
 claps are a glowing departure from the traditional Kloot sound. There's ev
 en the unusual sound of chatter\, which captures the exuberance of a world
  as it emerged from lockdown. “We were just running through the song a f
 ew times and talking\,” the singer explains. “The chatter somehow bled
  into the final take and it just gave it an atmosphere. It was completely 
 accidental\, but worked brilliantly.”It's Just You is the album's most s
 traightforward love song and is probably as close as any artist gets to cl
 assic\, vintage Paul Simon. Here It Comes\, with its delightfully playful 
 strings and soaring chorus\, is another completely improvised composition\
 , lyrically. John's not sure what the spontaneous words mean\, if they mea
 n anything\, but thinks that “Corporation penguins\, overdosed on dope
 ” is “Something to do with the business”. He suggests that the line 
 “here come the hallelujah angels\, swinging in on ropes” might have be
 en a subconscious recollection of a Monty Python scene where a shipful of 
 pirate accountants mount a hostile take-over of another boat and swing in 
 on ropes. “It's extreme consciousness. It's not anti-Christian. If ‘ne
 wsreaders' would have scanned I'd have sung that. It's about how preachers
  come in all shapes and sizes and how there's so much pressure to be part 
 of one group or another. Which I've always resisted. So I suppose it's rea
 lly a hymn to outsiderness.”The singer - the smallest child in an east M
 anchester comprehensive and growing up with a single mum - has always been
  one of life's outsiders\, and has never liked being pushed around. He's a
 lso - as he has increasingly realised as he's got older - one of life's ro
 mantics. He grew up near Werneth Loe\, just south of Manchester\, renowned
  for its spectacular views of the night sky. As a child and teenager he wo
 uld visit the spot just to stare at the ethereal majesty of it all. “You
  could see Hyde\, Stockport\, Manchester\, all lit up. My mate had some bi
 noculars\, and there are not just stars\, there are galaxies. I think it r
 eally helped me philosophically in terms of the whole... we're not that si
 gnificant. But there's that feeling of trying in life to do something. It'
 s like something David Lynch said\, the stars are beacons of hope.” Such
  experiences cut to the core of who John Bramwell is\, and explain why the
  sky and stars - and even those city streetlights in I Feel Me - feature s
 o often in his lyrics. “On previous albums I've thought what else can I 
 use instead of ‘stars' or ‘sky'\, you know\, but this time I haven't d
 one that. I didn't want to deny it.”Such imagery crops up most vividly i
 n A Sky Full Of Lightning\, another stratosphere-influenced John Bramwell 
 classic\, but this time the skies aren't something to gaze at it awe and w
 onder. They're the storm clouds of blackness which were enveloping the sin
 ger at the time and which he needed to escape from. It's the album's darke
 st track and he was unsure of where to put it in the running order but it 
 works poignantly in the middle\, giving context to the bluer sonic skies a
 round it. “There's some funny videos on YouTube\,” he says. “Like th
 e guy mowing the lawn and there's a raging tornado behind him. So I had th
 is black cloud\, and was subconsciously telling myself\, ‘I need to keep
  moving again.'” The heavens also feature in the gorgeous heartbreaker o
 f a song that follows. I Am The Sky\, with lyrics such as “Where are we 
 now? What do we know? What have we seen?” is a real life\, the universe 
 and everything statement that is surely one of the finest and most fully r
 ealised songs John Bramwell has ever written. The dark clouds are soon fol
 lowed by more rays of sunshine. Days Go By - about the passage of time\, s
 tarting a cappella and tapping into the old folk tradition of communal sin
 ging - is quintessential solo Bramwell: a mix of grit and warmth. The Elem
 ent Of Truth is another sitting at the station song\, but this time inspir
 ed by a busy platform in rush hour. “All my previous engagements with th
 e moon and the stars have been called off\,” he chuckles. “This is not
  a romantic setting. ‘And no one\, not even the rain can wash all this a
 way'. Because obviously I see rain as a purifying thing.Nobody Left With Y
 ou\, co-written with Dave Fidler\, and channelling early Bob Dylan in its 
 dizzying narrated style\, was written just before they went onstage at a f
 estival and captures “pre-gig nerves” along with the birds\, the rain\
 , the skies and the heavens. The closer\, Illegalised\, is a wry comment o
 n authority and our loss of freedom\, something else the singer has become
  very aware of on his travels in that camper van with Henry\, his trusty c
 anine companion.The album has been lovingly crafted by John Bramwell (guit
 ar 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 gradua
 lly became “trip the light fantastic” meaning dancing has a more than 
 careful latest owner in John Bramwell\, 2024. “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. S
 o get in the van with John\, Henry and the band and trip\, The Light Fanta
 stic.\n\nBoletos: https://wegottickets.com/event/685506
URL;VALUE=URI:https://360exp.net/events/da8a9ab8-077f-44ee-a2e2-587fe0546a
 9a
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