One Little Indian: Cat. TPLP718CD
Released 2006

Track list:
1. Fly (6.01)
2. Here I Come (4.41)
3. Colours (6.15)
4. Nobody Never (4.01)
5. Soto Mundo (6.29)
6. Pil (4.08)
7. Little Things (7.23)
8. Mote (4.13)
9. Slipaway (4.33)
10. After Hours (7.23)


IN BRIEF: The return of Fluke.

Fluke simply ceased to exist. With as little fanfare as that. Sometime after 2003’s immense (and ultimately suitable send-off) Puppy, they simply decided to give up recording under the moniker. Their final act as Fluke was a superb remix of Trisco’s Southpaw that nobody has heard of. Luckily, it didn’t take long for surviving members Jon Fugler and Mike Bryant to begin recording again, under the fresh alias 2 Bit Pie. The reason for the switch is unclear, as Mike Tournier left the band long before they recorded Puppy, but there you go.

It’s not altogether as simple as being slightly closer to the door in the record shops though. While there’s no drastic shift in sound, 2 Bit Pie are not quite Fluke. The main difference is that they’ve embraced modern sounds, where as their final Fluke records, brilliant as they were, were really wrapping up the 1990s for the band. It’s not hard to guess what sound they’ve begun to incorporate (if you’re struggling, here’s a hint: begins with “E”, ends with “-lectro”), and if that word depresses you, be consoled by the knowledge that Fugler and Bryant haven’t just flown blindly into the bright lights of everything new and trendy, but have managed to merge the sounds rocking 21st century dancefloors into the existing sound quite smoothly.

Lyrical meta-references to past Fluke lyrics are scattered throughout, as if to reassure us that this isn’t a complete departure from the old, but vocal duties are shared between Fugler and a supporting cast of female voices, primarily semi-permanent 2 Bit Pie fixture Yukiko Ishii. This may come as a welcome relief to those slightly numbed by over-exposure to Fugler’s distinctive delivery, and certainly adds some variation.

2 Bit Pie are also much rockier than Fluke ever were. This isn’t to say that Fluke were devoid of rock influences, and indeed, thanks to the universally constant power of lazy association, in a post Risotto world everyone remembers Fluke alongside the likes of the mid-90s peers The Prodigy and Propellerheads as purveyors of soundtrack friendly, rocky “electronica”. However, what got lost in that little giddying high of commercial recognition was that Fluke were a progressive house act, and while everyone else may be dim enough to interpret all their discography around the pivot point of Absurd and Atom Bomb, we know better- don’t we, dear reader?

The difference here is more deep-rooted, as 2 Bit Pie leave behind the 90s club chemistry they perfected and underlined on Puppy and move into a world where carpet-bombing of the word “electro” has seriously blurred the lines between the rock template and the electronic one. Haven’t a clue what I’m talking about? Compare mid-album peak Soto Mundo here with Switch/Twitch from Puppy. Both share a sweeping, emotionally-affecting high-end (in this case the eerie operatic vocals) and fulfil similar roles on their respective albums. But while Switch/Twitch was given all its muscle by a familiar Fluke cement-cracking bass groove, Soto Mundo floats its sky-scraping highs over a twisted guitar riff instead. The core has moved up from the subs to the mid-range: 2 Bit Pie are playing to your ears where Fluke were hammering your lower spine into glorious submission.

Some things never change, and one of them is clearly the old Fluke tactic of kick-starting an album with the most accessible and poppy weapon they’ve got in their arsenal, a tradition that dates back to 1993’s epiphanous Six Wheels On My Wagon. In this respect, opener Fly certainly doesn’t disappoint. The first few bars may sound horrifyingly like a generic electro-house piece is about to unfold, but as soon as the guitar enters, such fears are effortlessly assuaged. It’s a pounding digitalised rock number with vocal hooks that soar above your defences and alight inside your skull while the groove tickles your hindbrain into submission. In other words: quite simply magnificent, and a fine old way to kick-start this “2 Bit Something Or Other” lark.

The only trouble with opening on such a cast-iron piece of brilliance is that nothing else on the album quite matches up to it again. Not to say that the rest of the album is slack, per se, it’s just that Fly would bruise the ego of most of Fluke’s finest cuts, and its appearance right there from the word go sets up a level of expectation the remaining nine tracks exist in the contextual shadow of.

Continuing in established tradition, the more upbeat tracks cluster near the beginning, while the more downbeat and introspective works appear closer to the end. Of the former, count the jauntily groovy Here I Come with its daft lyrics, Nobody Never, lyrically a love song but musically a perversely filthy electro number that undermines itself superbly, and Pil which is as close to hard rock as the album steps. Of the latter, the trio of Little Things, Mote and Slipaway provide the obligatory atmospheric downtempo moments, as surprisingly accomplished as ever. For producers most often associated with their club material, Fugler and Bryant still manage to produce moments of trippy, serene and downright haunting downtime that rival devoted producers in the field for efficiency. Little Things in particular, sounds like the soundtrack to lonely exploration of the surface of the moon.

The danger of clumping together up and downtempo tracks on an album is the onset of monotony, and variation is provided by placing the moody Colours early and closing on the high-tempo and utterly misleadingly titled After Hours, a track that ensures the album closes with your pulse racing, rather than drifting into cosmic mist.

So… complaints? Very few spring to mind, and the main one that does is that 2 Pie Island just doesn’t quite live up to the promise of its opener. The move into slightly more rocky territory may irritate some, as even when the album is aiming squarely at the dancefloor it succeeds more as home listening. You may well miss the cataclysmic basslines of old, but as they go out in comes a set of new influences and subtle variations than ensures 2 Pie Island manages the crucial feat of offering something new without forsaking what has come before it. Near-total critical silence greeted the record on its 2006 release, but here’s your belated notice: Fluke are alive and well, and they go by the name of 2 Bit Pie.

ACE TRACKS:
Fly
Little Things
After Hours


Written by SYSTEM-J for TranceCritic.com. May not be reproduced or republished without the consent of TranceCritic.com. © All rights reserved.

Title: 2 Bit Pie - 2 Pie Island
Category: Album
Sub Category: Rocktronica
Reviewer: SYSTEM-J
Related Link: http://www.indian.co.uk/2bitpie/
Added: February 8th 2008
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