| Puppy | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 18 August 2003 | |||
| Recorded | 2003 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 67:13 | |||
| Label | One Little Indian | |||
| Producer | Fluke | |||
| Fluke chronology | ||||
| ||||
Puppy is the fifth album by British electronica group Fluke, first released on 18 August 2003. The album contains a variety of genres, spanning house to ambient.
After Risotto, Mike Tournier left the group to form Syntax with Jan Burton. Mike Bryant and Jon Fugler went on to produce Fluke's final studio album, Puppy, without Tournier's help.
There were still signs of life in Fluke's production studio when, in 2000, they produced a Virgin Records-distributed promotional CD named The Xmas Demos, which included early versions of many of the tracks intended for the album Puppy. Four of the tracks on The Xmas Demos would appear on Puppy, while the remaining tracks, "Liquid" and the original "Another Kind of Blues", did not make the final cut. The release of Puppy was significantly delayed by a change to the band's record label, switching from Virgin Records offshoot Circa to One Little Indian. Speculation about a new album was furthered when, in 2003, the remaining members of Fluke released two singles forming the basis of this next album. [1] Though the aptly titled "Slap It: The Return" signaled 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. In 2003, Fluke finally released their fifth studio album and first without Mike Tournier, Puppy, six years after their previous effort 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. [2]
"Snapshot" was featured in Need for Speed: Underground while "Switch/Twitch" is featured in Need for Speed: Underground 2 . The latter song was the only single to be released from Puppy after the album's release, and was distributed in CD and vinyl formats. However, it achieved nowhere near the critical or popular acclaim of the singles from Risotto, not even appearing in the UK top 40. "Another Kind of Blues" and "My Spine" were also featured in Total Club Manager 2004 .
"Another Kind of Blues" is a 4:37 edit of previously released promotional single, "Slap It" (original length 10:19). Another version, renamed "Zion", was used for the underground rave scene in the 2003 film The Matrix Reloaded . [3] Puppy's "Another Kind of Blues" is an entirely different song from the track of the same name included on the Xmas Demos.
The track "YKK" was used in the 2010 film The Experiment .
The number of Fluke's live shows decreased significantly after the release of Puppy owing to their personal commitments to young families. [4] In the few shows since, they have opted for the Fluke DJs set up, which uses "a battery of laptops and the odd deck" rather than focusing on their live band, an approach which Jon Fugler subsequently referred to as "good fun, but ultimately flawed for the dancefloor." [5]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |    link |
| TranceCritic | link |
| Progressive-Sounds | (9/10) link |
| PopMatters | (positive) link |
| Premonition Magazine | (very positive) link |
| The Independent | (mixed/negative) [6] |
The album was not received well critically with most of the critics 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. 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. [6]
Buzzcocks are an English punk rock band that singer-songwriter-guitarist Pete Shelley and singer-songwriter Howard Devoto formed in Bolton in 1976. During their career, the band combined elements of punk rock, power pop, and pop punk. They achieved commercial success with singles that fuse pop craftsmanship with rapid-fire punk energy; these singles were later collected on Singles Going Steady, an acclaimed compilation album music journalist and critic Ned Raggett described as a "punk masterpiece".
Sloan is a Canadian rock band based in Toronto and originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Sloan have released thirteen full-length albums and have received nine Juno Award nominations, winning one. Between 1996 and 2016, Sloan was among the top 75 best-selling Canadian artists in Canada and among the top 25 best-selling Canadian bands in Canada. The band is known for their sharing of songwriting and lead vocals from each member of the group and their unaltered line-up throughout their career.
Guided by Voices (GBV) is an American indie rock band formed in 1983 in Dayton, Ohio. It has made frequent personnel changes but always maintained the presence of principal songwriter Robert Pollard. The most well-known lineup of the band consisted of Pollard, his brother Jim, Mitch Mitchell, Tobin Sprout, Kevin Fennell (drums), and bassist Greg Demos. Noted at first for its lo-fi aesthetic and Portastudio four-tracks-to-cassette production methods, Guided by Voices' music was influenced by early post–British Invasion garage rock, psychedelic rock, progressive rock, punk rock and post-punk. The band has had a prolific output, releasing 35+ full-length albums along with many other releases, and has garnered a dedicated cult following. Their songs are known for their frequent brevity and for ending abruptly or intertwining with homemade sound effects.
Front Line Assembly (FLA) is a Canadian electro-industrial band formed by Bill Leeb in 1986 after leaving Skinny Puppy. FLA has developed its own sound incorporating elements of electronic body music and electro-industrial. The band's membership has rotated through the years, including Michael Balch, Rhys Fulber, and Chris Peterson, all of whom are associated with several other acts.
Barry Andrews is an English songwriter, singer and keyboard player who is a co-founder of Shriekback and was formerly a member of XTC and League of Gentlemen.
Toni-Ville Henrik Virtanen, better known by his stage name Darude, is a Finnish DJ and record producer from Eura, Satakunta. His music is characterised by its progressive/uplifting style. He started making music in 1995 and released the platinum-selling hit single "Sandstorm" in late 1999. His debut studio album, Before the Storm, was released on September 18, 2000, and sold 800,000 copies worldwide, earning Darude three Finnish Grammy Awards. It peaked at number one on Finland's Official List and number 6 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart in the United States. Darude's second studio album, Rush, reached number 11 on the Billboard dance chart in 2003 and number 4 on weekly album chart in Finland.
Fluke are an English electronic music group formed in the late 1980s by Mike Bryant, Jon Fugler and Mike Tournier. The band were noted for their diverse range of electronic styles, including house, techno, ambient, big beat and downtempo; for their reclusivity, rarely giving interviews; and for lengthy timespans between albums.
Unsane is an American noise rock trio that was formed in New York City in 1988. Its music touches on elements of hardcore punk and metal. The writer Patrick Kennedy wrote, "While developing the blueprint for noise-metal bands to follow, Unsane cut a remarkable swath through underground music, inspiring a devoted, cult-like following around the world."
Kee Marcello is a Swedish guitarist/vocalist, best known as the former guitarist in the hard rock bands Europe and Easy Action. He is currently pursuing his solo career.
Styles of Beyond was an American underground hip hop group from the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California. The group consists of MCs Ryan Patrick Maginn (Ryu) and Takbir Bashir (Tak), Colton Raisin Fisher, and producer Jason Rabinowitz. They have released two LPs, one mixtape and were heavily featured on Mike Shinoda's Fort Minor project in 2005. At one point they were also signed to Shinoda's Machine Shop Recordings label, although they left the label in late 2008. They are also heavily associated with the underground rap group Demigodz which features similar underground artists such as Apathy, Celph Titled, and 7L & Esoteric.
Safe as Milk is the debut studio album by American music group Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, released in June 1967 by Buddah Records. A heavily blues-influenced work, the album features a 20-year-old Ry Cooder, who played guitar and wrote some of the arrangements.
Risotto is the fourth album by British electronica group Fluke. The album was released on 26 May 1997 by Circa Records and 30 September 1997 by Astralwerks. It was the band's last album recorded with Mike Tournier.
Six Wheels on My Wagon is the second album by British electronic music group Fluke, released on 7 October 1993. The title parodies that of the song "Three Wheels on My Wagon", from the early 1960s. The most prominent track on the album, "Slid" is featured in the 1993 Phillip Noyce film Sliver as well as being a club favourite of popular DJ Sasha.
The Techno Rose of Blighty is the debut album by British electronic music group Fluke, released in 1991.
Syntax was an English electronic music group originally formed in 2000 by the musicians Jan Burton and Mike Tournier. They are best known for the songs "Destiny", "Bliss" and "Pride".
Dropping Daylight is an American rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota. They have performed with Jason Mraz, The Pixies, Plain White T's, Jonas Brothers, Paramore, Papa Roach, Cypress Hill, Green Day, Phantom Planet, The Misfits, Blue October, Breaking Benjamin, and more recently with Army of Anyone and Sick Puppies.
2 Bit Pie was an English electronic music group formed in 2005 as a collaboration between Fluke and many other musicians, some of whom had previously worked with Fluke, and others who already had significant experience within the music industry, such as Andy Gray.
International Artists (IA) was an American independent record label based in Houston, Texas, United States, that originally existed from 1965 to 1970. It is not to be confused with International Artists Records, a classical music record label founded in New York City in 1956.
Sick Puppies is an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1997. After releasing their debut album Welcome to the Real World in 2001, the band rose to prominence in 2006 when their song "All the Same" was uploaded, along with a video, to YouTube. The video supported the Free Hugs Campaign, which was launched in Sydney by Juan Mann, and has since received over 78 million views on the website. This success was followed up with their second studio album, Dressed Up as Life in 2007, which entered the Billboard 200 at number 181. Their third studio album, Tri-Polar, came out on 14 July 2009. The band's fourth studio album, Connect was released on 16 July 2013. They released their fifth studio album, Fury on 20 May 2016 with new vocalist Bryan Scott after Shimon Moore was fired from the band in October 2014.
A Christmas Record is an LP originally released in 1981 by ZE Records. It was recorded by various musicians from that label's roster, including Was, August Darnell, Material, Suicide, Cristina, and The Waitresses, all performing original seasonal songs. The album was reissued in 1982, as a "Special Edition", with a revised track listing. In 2004, a further revised version was issued on CD, as ZE Xmas Record Reloaded 2004. The 2004 version was remastered and re-released again in 2016 under its original title and artwork, with one of the 1982 "Special Edition" songs restored.
