I Am Kloot’s latest album, ‘Sky at Night’, takes the band full circle, as it sees them return to the producer who helped them create their first album, ‘Natural History’ in 2001. Back then they were just another bunch of scruffy troubadours, and the producer was a fellow unknown musician helping his friends achieve their dream. Nine years on I Am Kloot are noble elder statesmen of the Manchester music scene and the producer in question, Guy Garvey, is known across the land as the lead singer of Elbow, one of the country’s biggest bands.

Accompanied by his Elbow bandmate Craig Potter (who is responsible for producing his own band’s ‘Seldom Seen Kid’) Garvey jumped at the chance to spend the best part of the last year recording I Am Kloot’s sumptuous new material. Unlike Kloot’s stripped back and relatively simple debut ‘Sky at Night’ pulls out all the stops and makes brilliant use of orchestra and choir arrangements as well as a whole raft of guest musicians. As screenwriter and Kloot fan Frank Cottrell Boyce explains, “This is the same Kloot but they’re painting with a lot more colours, because they’re painting on a much bigger canvas.”

Live Kloot have always been arresting entertainers and judging by the previews of new material that are available online this forthcoming tour promises to be something very special.