Background information
Origin
Beaconsfield
Buckinghamshire,
England
Genre(s)
Techno, House,
Ambient
house, IDM,
Ambient
techno
Years active
1988 – present
Label(s)
Creation,
Strange Fruit,
Circa,
Astralwerks,
Appalooso,
One Little Indian
Website
Flukenet.info
Members
Mike
Bryant
Jon
Fugler
Former members
Julian Nugent
Rachel
Stewart
Mike
Tournier
Fluke is an English electronic
music group formed in the late 1980s by Mike Bryant, Jon
Fugler and Mike Tournier with Julian
Nugent as the band's manager. The band's conception was influenced by
the members interest in the burgeoning acid house
music scene and particularly the work of Cabaret Voltaire
and Giorgio Moroder.
The band are noted for their diverse range of electronic
styles spanning the house, techno,
ambient
and blues
genres. The band are noted for their reclusivity, rarely giving
interviews, and lengthy timespans between albums. Many listeners know
of Fluke only through the inclusion of their music in many blockbuster film
soundtracks, most notably The Matrix Reloaded and Sin
City as well as featuring prominently on the soundtracks to the Need For Speed and Wipeout video game
series.
To date Fluke have produced five original studio albums, two
"best of" compilations and two live albums. Throughout their career
they have made several changes to their line-up with credited
appearances attributed to Neil Davenport playing guitars, Robin
Goodridge on drums and Hugh Bryder as a DJ. When Fluke were touring for
Risotto they
were joined on stage by Rachel Stewart who acted as a
personification of the band's official mascot, a character from the Wipeout video games
series named Ariel Tetsuo. Stewart continued as lead female vocalist
and as a dancer for all of Fluke's live performances between 1997 and
1999.
After Risotto, Mike Tournier left the
group to form Syntax with Jan
Burton. Mike Bryant and Jon Fugler went on to produce Fluke's latest
studio album without Touriner's help and the pair have subsequently
engaged in projects under the name "2 Bit Pie", with their debut
album released on September 4 2006. The musical activities of Mike
Tournier remain unknown at present.
|
Contents
- 1 History/biography
- 1.1 The
Techno Rose of Blighty
- 1.2 Six
Wheels On My Wagon
- 1.3 Oto
and Risotto
- 1.4 Progressive
History X/Progressive History XXX
- 1.5 Puppy
- 1.6 Current
work
- 2 Mainstream
popularity
- 3 Live
performances
- 4 Selected
discography
- 5 References
- 6 External
links
|
History/biography
The Techno Rose of Blighty
Prior to forming Fluke, Jon Fugler and Mike
Bryant had previously played in two punk bands
together named "The Leaky Radiators" and "The Lay Figures"
respectively. The third member of Fluke, Mike
Tournier, was introduced to the group when he undertook work
on a collaboration with Jon Fugler entitled "Skin".
It soon became clear that all three shared musical tastes, having a
shared interest in the acid house scene and the more experimental
electronic sounds of Cabaret Voltaire
and Giorgio Moroder.
Finally, with the casting of Julian Nugent in a managerial role, Fluke
was born.
Fluke's first single, released in 1988, was a white
label vinyl entitled "Island Life", pressed on a
clear blue 12" vinyl record.
Although a commercial failure, as well as being very different in sound
to the band's later works, the group persisted and released a further
two white label vinyls; "Thumper!" (sample (help·
The attention that these records received successfully gained the band
a record deal with Creation Records with whom they
released their first CD single "Philly"
in the same year.
The following year saw the release of Fluke's
first album, The Techno Rose
of Blighty which was swiftly followed by the
single "The Bells" and a live album
entitled Out (In Essence).
For the release of Out (In Essence) Fluke abandoned
their deal with Creation Records and signed instead with Circa Records,
an offshoot of Virgin.
Along with the releases of these first two albums, Fluke also began
their career-spanning tradition of releasing work of a different nature
under various monikers. The first of these, the industrial
single "All Aboard" was
released in 1990 under the name The
Lucky Monkeys.
The band realised at this early stage in their
career that they would experience the greatest artistic freedom if they
possessed their own recording studio. They therefore took it upon
themselves to obtain their own premises. This was an asset which,
according to Jon Fugler, proved invaluable in coordinating the "wider
pool of people - musicians and friends - that we draw on to help."
Six Wheels On My Wagon
The cover art for
Six Wheels on My Wagon.
After a two year break Fluke returned with what
was to be a breakthrough into mainstream popular music when, in 1993,
they released the single "Slid". This single became an
instant club classic when it was picked up by DJ Sasha
who liked it so much that he included three separate remixes of it on
his Renaissance album.
This burst of success was followed by a rush of two further singles, "Electric Guitar" (sample (help·
Other reviewers went even further, with The
Independent suggesting that Fluke were to become the next big thing in
Europe:
| “ |
Fluke's
Six Wheels On My Wagon represents the current high-water mark of modern
ambient-groove music, showing that although this mode has effectively
become the future sound of Europe, it's rarely done as well on the
continent as in Britain. Though born out of the groove, the pieces on
Six Wheels On My Wagon have a melodic flow which manages to combine
elements of surprise and innovation with a hedonistic serenity. |
” |
In 1994 Fluke released The Peel Sessions,
recorded for BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel.
This CD was a selection of tracks from two live sessions recorded on 18
November 1990
and 10
December 1991.
The CD also included one new song, Time Keeper, and
several tracks which had previously been released on vinyl only. Fluke
were invited to perform two further, unreleased, Peel Sessions after
this CD. One broadcast on the 10th November, 1996 and the other
performed live on the 8 December 2002.
Oto and Risotto
The following year Fluke released
their third album, Oto, which is
the Greek
for "of the
ear". In terms of style, Oto was somewhat darker
than Six Wheels on my Wagon, focusing on the
downbeat ambient effects which were present in the second half of Six
Wheels. However, in this album the band completely removed
the uplifting house style that characterised their
previous work. Owing to the decreased accessibility of the album as a
result of this, only three singles were deemed suitable for release
from Oto; "Bubble",
"Bullet" and "Tosh".
In spite of this, "Bullet" was chosen by Dominic Pride of Billboard
magazine as one of his top ten picks of 1995.
These singles were also the first of Fluke's releases to gain
mainstream top 40 chart positions in the UK.
The cover image of Risotto,
depicting a stainless steel blender.
In 1996 Fluke released "Atom Bomb", a single that
reached #20 in the UK charts.
Originally created as a soundtrack to the video game Wipeout
2097, it was to become the centrepiece of their
next album, Risotto.
The track was also included in an official release of the Wipeout
2097 game soundtrack, called Wipeout
XL, which featured tracks from The Chemical Brothers,
Future Sound of London, Photek,
Underworld, Daft Punk, Leftfield
and The
Prodigy.
Of all their productions, it is Fluke's fourth studio album which is
most widely known, primarily because it represented the pinnacle of
Fluke's mainstream chart success with the singles "Atom Bomb" and "Absurd"
(sample (help·
”
At this stage in time the band also saw fit to
re-use the Lucky Monkeys moniker for the
release of "Bjango", a single which
included a remix by Fluke themselves.
After touring for a year with Risotto
on the American, "Electric Highway Tour", and having made two
appearances at the Glastonbury festival in 1995
and 1998, Mike Tournier elected to leave the group to pursue a
different project named Syntax, with the band's long
standing friend, Jan Burton.
The pair produced just a single album, Meccano
Mind in March 2004, which in turn spawned two
moderately successful singles and a live tour supporting Scissor
Sisters, before the pair decided to go their own ways in 2005.
Progressive History
X/Progressive History XXX
With the group split it was seen fit to release
two "Best Of" albums entitled Progressive History X,
a compilation spanning their entire ten year producing history, and
then in 2001, Progressive History
XXX, a three CD box-set including many rare and
hard to find mixes.
2002 saw the formation of The Fluke DJs, a
live-show pairing of Jon Fugler and Hugh Bryder. Bryder was a DJ who
had assisted Fluke in their live performances since 1993 as well as
working with other DJs such as Seb Fontaine while holding a DJ
residency at MTV's
special event parties.
This seemed to indicate further rifts amongst the band as this DJ
combination included neither Mike Bryant nor Mike Tournier.
However, Jon Fugler denied these rumours shortly after they surfaced
claiming that the band merely needed some time away from each other
after their intense work on Risotto.
Puppy
Even with the release of the "best of" albums,
there were still signs of life in Fluke's production studio when, in
2000, they produced a promotional CD named The
Xmas Demos. This included many of the tracks
intended for the album Puppy, with
only the track Liquid in the end being excluded, instead available as a
free mp3 after
completing a game on the official site. Speculation about a
new album was furthered when, after a break of 6 years, the remaining
members of Fluke put out two singles forming the basis of this next
album.
Though the aptly titled "Slap It: The Return" signalled
a break from the past, with the writing credits listed simply as
"Bryant/Fugler" under the Appalooso label, "Pulse"
exemplified a much darker style and was released on the One
Little Indian label. It was in 2003 however that Fluke finally
demonstrated their ability to survive without Tournier when they
released their seventh studio album, Puppy,
six years after Risotto. The name of
the album was inspired by Jeff Koons' fifty foot sculpture of a
puppy that stands outside the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao.
This album proved to be similar to the earlier Risotto
tracks in tempo and mood, but with the introduction of some new ideas,
such as the inclusion of a blues track, "Blue Sky" and the addition
of a very dark techno orientated bonus track, Pulse.
The album cover of Puppy showing
a reworking of the sculpture outside of the
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
The album was not received well critically with
most of the criticisms labelling the album as dated. Andy Gill of The
Independent wrote:
| “ |
Surely
the longest-serving of UK dance outfits, Fluke have been a fixture on
the national house scene for more than a decade now ... With their
endlessly cycling layers of fizzing synths and those big filter-sweeps
that were de rigueur a few years back - when the music recedes to
nothing, then surges back again - tracks such as "My Spine" and "Hang
Tough" could have been made at any time in the past six or seven years.
Maybe they were; whatever, they sound a tad cumbersome compared with
the leaner garage beats favoured now. In "Snapshot", the juddering
synth riff is the techno equivalent of the 12-bar blues, a standard
form that has become all too easy for lazy musicians to slip into.
Fluke may sing, "It's easy to change/ Go out and get a new name/ Forget
yesterday" in "Switch/Twitch", but it is clearly not proving that easy
for them to develop beyond their old house style, notwithstanding odd
moments such as the freeway glide of "Baby Pain" and the soulful choir
on the closing, chill-out number, "Blue Sky". It's Nineties music for a
Noughties world. |
” |
The only single to be released from Puppy
after the album's release was "Switch",
which was put out in CD and vinyl format. The track was also featured
on the soundtrack for the Electronic Arts video game Need For Speed
Underground 2 but achieved nowhere near the critical or popular acclaim
of the singles from Risotto, not even clocking an
appearance in the UK top 40.
Current work
In late 2005, Mike Bryant and Jon Fugler teamed
up with Jan
Burton, Wild Oscar, Robin Goodridge, Dilshani Weerasinghe, Marli Buck
and producer Andy Gray to form 2 Bit Pie with a limited release
of "Nobody
Never". This track retained the rough vocals and electronic feel that
was by now characteristic of Fluke, but had a stronger emphasis on live
playback and real instruments.
In May 2006 there were club previews of two new 2 Bit Pie songs,
"Little Things" and "Here I Come" (sample (help·
A further 2 Bit Pie song made its debut at the Afterhours club event at
KROQ on the
17th June 2006, entitled "Fly".
Finally, on September 4, 2006, 2 Bit Pie released their debut album, 2Pie
Island, in the UK to minimal critical attention.
Mainstream popularity
Although Fluke have been producing
music for the best part of two decades they remain relatively unknown
to a large scale audience and the band members themselves are even less
recognisable. Jon Fugler insisted in an interview with The
Independent that the band's reclusivity was "less about selfish
hedonism than the revival of 'a communal attitude that had long been
forgotten'".
The main sphere of influence where the band has had success is through
their inclusion in advertisements, film and video game soundtracks.
Amongst the more prominent of these
appearances was the 2003 film, The
Matrix Reloaded, using the Fluke track "Slap
It" renamed to Zion for compatibility with the film.
Fluke's 1997 hit "Absurd"
was featured in the trailer for 'Get Carter', in the strip
club sequence of the 2005 film Sin City and the 'Whitewash Edit' is
included on the 'Tomb Raider' soundtrack which tied in
with a commercial deal for Ericsson who sponsored the Tomb Raider film
and then went on to use "Absurd" in its commercials.
Where possible Fluke's licencing agent, David Steel at V2 Music, tries
to ensure that when their tracks are used in films they also appear on
the soundtrack album:
| “ |
Steel
acknowledges that he "licensed the track for use in the film on the
condition that it would also be included on the soundtrack." In this
way, notes Steel, the song "earned significantly more money than if it
had just been in the film". |
” |
This kind of exposure was welcomed
by members of the band, as Jon Fugler said in an interview with
Billboard:
| “ |
A
band's success is based on what they do, not what their music is used
for. I can only speak for the UK, but I'd find it very surprising if
anybody listened to an ad for any kind of normal piece of product and
went, 'Oh, I'm gonna take that as being minus points against this band
or this composer or this act, because they're selling out.' I don't
think anybody views it like that anymore. |
” |
In 1997 Fluke's US sales totalled 14,000
which was modest compared with the 200,000 copies of Dig
Your Own Hole that The Chemical Brothers
sold.
In an interview with Billboard magazine, Fugler stated that he felt
that predicted figures for the US electronica boom were overhyped by
people who were out of touch with the music scene; "The expectations
came from the people who [had] nothing to do with the music, it came
from the business level, people not involved with it."
This lack of commercial success has not dampened the spirits of the
band however, Fugler going on to say "It’s not about being on the cover
of a magazine".
Live performances
Fluke's live shows are in many
respects similar to the live performances given by The Chemical Brothers
in that both these artists employ stunning visual effects combining
lasers and projected displays.
Furthermore, Fluke's performances come in two varieties of show;
performances as Fluke where the shows consist of entirely original
Fluke material and shows under the alias "The Fluke DJs" whereby a
combination of Fluke tracks are mixed with others in the style of a DJ
Set. Unable to attract major crowds, Fluke resorted to "festival-style"
tours along with other acts to draw in a sizeable audience as was seen
with their participation in the "Electric Highway" tour in 1997 where
they were joined by The Crystal Method and the "Pukkelpop"
festival where they headlined along with Metallica
amongst others.
Rachel Stewart on stage with The Fluke DJs
Contrasting with many other
electronic acts, however, Fluke's members were never entirely relegated
to standing behind consoles. This was due to their conscription of
session musicians to play guitar (Neil Davenport) and percussive
elements (Robin Goodridge) live on stage. From 1997 onwards their shows
were further enhanced with the inclusion of the dancer and singer Rachel
Stewart as a real-world incarnation of the band's mascot Ariel Tetsuo.
Originally a character from the Wipeout 2097 video game, Tetsuo was
subsequently adopted as the band's "fourth member" following "Atom
Bomb"'s inclusion in the Wipeout 2097 soundtrack. This also gave the
perfect excuse to incorporate a female vocalist to counter Fugler's
deep and somewhat monotonous spoken vocals. While Bryant and Tournier
were indeed behind synthesizers, Fugler and Stewart were able to
entertain the crowd visually with dancing and singing while Fluke's
resident lighting technician, Andy Watton, provided a suitable
technology-driven accompaniment to the music.
In 2004, Stewart parted ways with Fluke indefinitely, instead focusing
on a new project with ex-EMF band member James Atkin,
named Beauty School.
| “ |
We
threw ourselves into being a live band, but it was always important for
us to give people a real show rather than just stand there twiddling
knobs. |
” |
The number of Fluke's live shows
decreased significantly after the release of Puppy
owing to their personal commitments to young families.
However, in the few shows they have played since, they have opted for
the Fluke DJs setup, which utilises "a battery of laptops and the odd
deck" rather than focusing on their live stage band, an approach which
Jon Fugler subsequently referred to as "good fun, but ultimately flawed
for the dancefloor."
Selected discography
-
Main
article: Fluke discography
Albums
- The Techno Rose
of Blighty (1991)
- Out (In Essence)
(1991)
- Six Wheels On My Wagon
(1993)
- Oto
(1995)
- Risotto
(1997)
- Progressive History X
(2001)
- Progressive History
XXX (2002)
- Puppy
(2003)
Singles
- "Island Life" (1988) (sample (help·
References
-
One Little Indian Fluke Biography.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
Six Wheels on My Wagon Inlay Sheet, Fluke
are: Mike Bryant, Mike Tournier, Jonathan Fugler, Julian Nugent.
-
Pride, Dominic
(1994). "Euro subculture offers ambience with attitude.". Billboard
106 (30): 1.
-
All Music Guide: Review of Six Wheels on My
Wagon. Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
Gill, Andy. "Big hits, no plugs: the albums of 1993", The
Independent, 1993-12-23, p. Pop Music Page.
-
BBC Radio 1: John Peel: Fluke Session 1990.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
BBC Radio 1: John Peel: Fluke Session 1991.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
BBC Radio 1: John Peel: Fluke Session 1996.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
BBC Radio 1: John Peel: Fluke Session 2002.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
Atwood, Brett
and Bambarger, Bradley (1995). "The critics' choice.". Billboard
107 (51): 32.
-
Flick, Larry
(1997). "Sweden's Robyn is poised to take U.S. by charm.". Billboard
109 (25): 34.
-
Atwood, Brett
(1996). "Dance music energizes `Wipeout XL'.". Billboard
108 (37): 72.
-
Bennun, David. "This Week's Pop CD releases: Dance: Fluke: Risotto", The
Guardian, 1997-10-10, p. T.018.
-
Astralwerks
Fluke Biography. Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
Glastonbury Festival Artist List for 1995.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
Glastonbury Festival Artist List for 1998.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
Barrie, Stuart. "The Razz: Clubbing nation: The sound of Syntax is no
Fluke", The Daily Record, 2004-04-09,
p. 54.
-
Global Trance Fluke Discography (Page 3).
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
The Vibes Interview with Jon Fugler.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
Gill, Andy. "ARTS: ROCK&POP - THIS WEEK'S ALBUM RELEASES", The
Independent, 2003-08-15, p. Features section, 13.
-
One Little Indian 2 Bit Pie Biography.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
Uk Dance Records: 2 Bit Pie.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
KCRW playlist for 5/19/2006.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
KROQ Afterhours Playlist. Retrieved
on 2006-11-09.
-
Thompson, Ben. "ROCK", The Independent, 1993-10-17,
p. The Sunday Review Page.
-
Amazon listing for The Matrix Reloaded.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
Amazon listing for Sin City.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
Bouley, Charles
Karel (2001). "NIN, U2 Rock For Elektra's 'Lara Croft.'.". Billboard
113 (25): 14.
-
Paoletta,
Michael (2002). "License To Dance.". Billboard 114
(13): 34.
-
Morris, Chris
(1998). "U.S. TV ads tap into new music, as stigma fades.". Billboard
110 (17): 1.
-
Techno.cz: showing lighting arrangement.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
Reece, Doug and
Flick, Larry (1997). "Electronica: The beat goes on.". Billboard
109 (49): 5.
-
Rodger, Jennifer. "Where to find yourself a music festival.", The
Independent, 1997-08-16, p. 11.
-
VH1: Fluke Biography. Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
ElectronicMusic.com Review of Fluke live in
Seattle. Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
-
Beauty School Official Site: Biography.
Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
External links
| v • d • e Fluke |
| Mike Bryant | Jon
Fugler | Rachel Stewart | Mike
Tournier |
| Discography |
| Albums: The Techno Rose
of Blighty | Six Wheels On My Wagon
| Oto | Risotto
| Progressive History X
| Progressive History
XXX | Puppy |
| Live albums: Out (In Essence)
| The Peel Sessions |
| Singles: Island Life | Thumper!
| Joni/Taxi | Philly
| The Bells | Slid
| Electric Guitar | Groovy Feeling | Bubble
| Bullet | Tosh
| Atom Bomb | Absurd
| Squirt | Absurd: The Remixes
| Slap It | Pulse
| Hang Tough | Switch |
| Related
articles |
| 2 Bit Pie | Beauty
School | Jan
Burton | Full Fluke Discography | Syntax |
