I Am Kloot

Northern England has a habit of turning out bands, like Elbow and Pulp, that illuminate rock's margins for a decade or so, before emerging to define the very fabric of out lives . . . and Manchester trio I Am Kloot fits squarely within that tradition. And while it's no surprise that an outfit hatched under slate-grey Mancunian skies should mine a rich seam of mordant wit and messed-up romanticism, few bands have engineered that alchemical transition to glittering songcraft like Bramwell, Jobson and Hargreaves. This introductory selection of I their work includes terrific first single "To You", jangling 2010 single "Northern Skies", and that gorgeous slice of folkish miserablism, "No Fear of Falling". Beauty and tragedy are two sides of the same coin, in I Am Kloot's Next Steps.

There's no shortage of grim wit and kitchen-sink drama in the work of I Am Kloot, elevated into the realms of the sublime by finessed arrangements and the often spectral vocals of frontman/songwriter John Bramwell — the slow-rolling "Because" from 2001 debut album Natural History strikes a beautifully-judged balance between the ordinary and the ethereal, the bleak and the transcendent. "Mermaids", a standout on second album I Am Kloot (2003) continues in that vein, with its percussion of rattled chains and lyrical vision of doomed beauty, while "Life in a Day" sees the band exploring rougher, more turbulent waters. Light and shadows dapple the lesser heard tracks of I Am Kloot's Deep Cuts.

We continue to soak up the world-weary charms of I Am Kloot though the gauze of the band's session, live and secondary releases, notably the BBC Radio 1 Peel Sessions album that gathered together songs recorded for the legendary DJ in 2001 and 2004 — "Strange Without You" undermines its almost-jaunty, jazzy rhythm with the hint of something sinister, while the ominous "Storm Warning" subverts its warm melody with an unsettling misanthropy. "Fat Kids in Photographs" — from 2008's rarities and B sides collection B — uses a framework of acoustic beauty and delicacy on which to hang a poetry of bitter recollection.

Manchester three-piece I Am Kloot has slowly but surely been gathering cult momentum since its low-key beginnings in 1999. The band made its album debut in 2001 with Natural History and has existed more in the margins than out of them since then, playing to a faithful core of enlightened followers who would no doubt prefer it if their heroes — Johnny Bramwell (guitar/vocals), Peter Jobson (bass) and Andy Hargreaves (drums) — avoided the mainstream's cheapening glare. That may not be possible now that 2010's superlative Sky At Night, co-produced by Elbow's Guy Garvey, has all the makings of a masterwork. The band describes itself as "a Harold Pinter real deal to everyone else's overblown, Cecil B de Mille mock-ups". Others have used the tag "northern gothic" but, once you've fully plugged into these rich and intricately layered Essentials, it'll become clear that the ever-expanding universe of I Am Kloot truly defies description.