''Risotto'' is the fourth album by British

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...

group

Fluke Fluke may refer to: Biology * Fluke (fish), a species of marine flatfish * Fluke (tail), the lobes of the tail of a cetacean, such as dolphins, whales, and porpoises. * Fluke (flatworm), parasitic flatworms in the class Trematoda ** Blood fluke ...

. The album was released on 30 September 1997 on

Circa Records Virgin Records is a British record label owned by Universal Music Group. They were originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman (musician), ...

, and on

Astralwerks Astralwerks (or Astralwerks Records) is an American record label primarily focused on electronic music that is now owned by Universal Music Group. Its material is distributed via Capitol Music Group in the United States. The label was founded in ...

in the US. It was the band's last album recorded with

Mike Tournier Michael James Tournier (born 24 May 1963) is an English electronic musician, and one of the co-founders of the electronic music group Fluke, along with Mike Bryant and Jon Fugler. He first met with other members of Fluke in High Wycombe where h ...

Overview

The album is named after the dish

risotto Risotto ( , ; from , 'rice') is an Italian cuisine, Italian rice dish cooked with broth until it reaches a creamy consistency. The broth can be derived from meat, fish or vegetables. Many types of risotto contain butter, onion, white wine, a ...

(). The album artwork was designed by

The Designers Republic The Designers Republic is a British graphic design studio based in Sheffield, England, founded in 1986 by Ian Anderson and Nick Phillips (graphic designer), Nick Phillips. They are best known for electronic music logos, album artwork, and an ...

and features a

chrome-plated Chrome plating (less commonly chromium plating) is a technique of electroplating a thin layer of chromium onto a metal object. A chrome plated part is called ''chrome'', or is said to have been ''chromed''. The chromium layer can be decorativ ...

KitchenAid KitchenAid is an American home appliance brand owned by Whirlpool Corporation. The company was started in 1919 by The Hobart Manufacturing Company to produce Mixer (appliance), stand mixers; the H-5 is the first model that was introduced. The com ...

mixer. Many of the tracks that brought Fluke to a larger audience are featured on this album, including "Atom Bomb", used on the ''

Wipeout 2097 ''Wipeout 2097'' (released as ''Wipeout XL'' in North America and Japan) is a 1996 racing video game developed and published by Psygnosis for the PlayStation. It is the second installment of the '' Wipeout series'' and a sequel to the original g ...

soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...

, and "Absurd," used in many films/trailers, including a 1998 Volkswagen Beetle commercial, ''

Sin City ''Sin City'' is a series of neo-noir Comic book, comics by American comic book writer-artist Frank Miller. The first story originally appeared in ''Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special'' (April 1991), and continued in ''Dark Horse Prese ...

'' in 2005, and the episode "Chaos" from the show ''

Spaced ''Spaced'' is a British television sitcom created, written by and starring Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, and directed by Edgar Wright, about the comedic, and sometimes surreal and action-packed, misadventures of Daisy Steiner and Tim Bi ...

''. "Absurd" is also used as the main theme for ''Sky Sports ''Monday Night Football'' program first from August 1997 to May 1998 and since August 2010 to the current day. When Fluke was touring for ''Risotto'' they were joined on stage by

Rachel Stewart Rachael Stewart (born 1973) is a Scottish singer and folk dancer. She is one of the founding members of electro-pop group Beauty School and first came to attention in 1997 when she toured with electronic music group Fluke. Life and career Arou ...

who acted as a personification of the band's official mascot, a character from the ''Wipeout'' series named Arial Tetsuo. Stewart continued as lead female vocalist and as a dancer for all of Fluke's live performances between 1997 and 1999. After touring for a year with ''Risotto'' on the American "Electric Highway Tour", and having made two appearances at the

Glastonbury festival The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts (commonly referred to as simply Glastonbury Festival, known colloquially as Glasto) is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts held near Pilton, Somerset, England, in most su ...

in 1995 and 1998, Tournier decided to leave the group to pursue a different project named

Syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

, with the band's long standing friend,

Jan Burton Jan Burton is a Welsh record producer and vocalist, best known for his work with ex- Fluke member Mike Tournier in their joint project, Syntax. In December 2017, Burton announced that he was engaged in his first solo project. He also provided v ...

.
-
- In 2002, The Fluke DJs were formed, 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 MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

's special event parties. This seemed to indicate further rifts within the band as this DJ combination included neither Mike Bryant nor Tournier. However, 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''.

Critical reception

''Risotto'' was perhaps the most favourably reviewed of all Fluke's albums with

David Bennun David Bennun (born 1968) is an English writer, journalist and music critic. Career Bennun started his career in music journalism in the 1990s. Notable publications he has written for include ''Melody Maker'', ''The Guardian'' and ''The Quie ...

of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' writing: Writing for ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...

'' in October 1997,

Neil Kulkarni Neil Kulkarni (26 July 1972 – 22 January 2024) was a British music journalist, author and musician from Coventry, England. Upon his death, ''Clash'' magazine called him "one of the sharpest pens of his generation". He primarily focused on hip ...

gave ''Risotto'' a very positive review, singling out the album's lyrics as a highlight; "

luke Luke may refer to: People and fictional characters * Luke (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Luke (surname), including a list of people with the name * Luke the Evangelist, author of the Gospel of Luk ...

have the dumbest greatest deepest lyrics in dance – ''"Baby's got an atom-bomb/a motherfuckin' atom bomb"'' is the greatest heavy metal lyric never written; ''"Anybody with a heart votes love"'' is a chorus Stevie Wonder would be proud of; ''"Think big that's only half as large/Bigger, better, twice as hard"'' is Ooompah-Loompah haiku made pop poetry."

Track listing

References

{{Authority control Fluke (band) albums 1997 albums Astralwerks albums Albums with cover art by The Designers Republic