AUSTRALIA’S weird and wonderful black-clad choristers are gearing up for their biennial blast round Britain.

Following triumphant UK tours in 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013, The Spooky Men’s Chorale have packed their hats and left their native New South Wales, whisking themselves away from the eucalyptus-infused Blue Mountains for nigh on 40 UK dates - a veritable bounty of big summer festivals, wondrous workshops, a grand London finale and even a one-day innovation of all things spooky - Spookyfest.

Kicking off recently at Salisbury Arts Centre, the tour runs the length and breadth of the country, stopping off at Sedbergh's St Andrew’s Church on Friday, August 21 (7.30pm).

Sedbergh’s biennial Music Festival - the next is in 2016 - is staging the show as a Between the Festivals event.

The loveable but slightly scary Antipodeans, describe themselves as “equal parts monk, Visigoth and village idiot,” and are not afraid to send up the stereotypical male to side-splitting effect. Says Spookmeister (and sole Kiwi) Stephen Taberner: “The chorale attempts to explore the paradoxes of latter day masculinity with unbridled enthusiasm, a pleasing array of deep harmonies and a gentle wink towards posterity. We're trying to master the impossible art of being both musically immaculate and blitheringly stupid.”

The Spookies were formed by Melbourne-based Taberner in Sydney in 2001. With a sound variously described as “sexy, powerful, impossibly gentle and sad but unmistakably male,” their repertoire ranges from Georgian drinking songs to whisper perfect ballads and a string of improbable original hits like Don’t Stand Between a Man and his Tool and Stop Scratching It. Spooky veterans will still be reeling from their hilarious takes of classics like Earth, Wind and Fire’s Boogie Wonderland and the funniest version of Abba’s Dancing Queen you are likely to witness.

The mighty 15-strong line-up’s shiny new show will run the bizarre gamut of surfing, gluttony, tools, mastodons, Bee Gees, body parts and how to scare off hostile neighbouring tribes - songs from their last album The Spooky Man in History but also from their new album Warm.

Warm takes the boys back to where they started and apparently was prompted by years of fans’ requests for an unadulterated album of shiver-down-the-spine Georgian songs.

Adds Stephen: “This is an album designed to enhance your reverie, rather than disturb it. It’s us returning to our roots, to the sounds that originally inspired us. The songs are ghostly and vast, made for crypts and catacombs and vast resonant spaces.”

Support acts covering different legs of the tour will be Wiltshire-based singer songwriter Jess Vincent, Sheffield singer Kirsty Bromley and from the Australian world music scene, Jenny M Thomas.

Tickets are available on 015396-20125.