Released: 2003
One of the best places to find yourself is when you’re sat on a pavement. In this case John Bramwell was busking, a vocation which teaches you about the human condition in a way few others will. Having tried this in several locations – Athens, Paris, Stockport – he came to the conclusion that home comforts were the best, quipping “You get a better quality of disinterested twat in Stockport.”
How he’d got to be there in the first place has long passed into legend in Manchester, a place where they very much like that kind of thing. Bramwell had first begun performing with Bryan Glancy as The Mouth in the early nineties (It was Glancy’s nickname of ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ which would provide the title for Elbow’s album), before christening himself Johnny Dangerously. Under that pseudonym he worked for local TV and recorded the sparse You, Me And The Alarm Clock, a record which has since earned minor cult status.
In I Am Kloot he was joined by Peter Jobson and Andy Hargreaves, but label problems led to their debut album Natural History going out of print. It’s self titled follow up saw them drawing a different type of disinterested twat – Pitchfork bitchily accusing them of wanting to be “the next Blur or Keane” – but it closed with The Same Deep Water As Me, a gracefully understated ballad that’s remained buried treasure to this day. Alive with strings, brushed drums and brass, on it the singer’s laconic delivery had it seemed found a gentle home; even from the other side of the pavement, Johnny knew he now had your attention.
The Voice Of Unreason 