Puppy and other work after Tournier's departure
In 2000, an internal promotional CD named The Xmas Demos surfaced and leaked online, which included early versions of many of the tracks intended for their upcoming album Puppy. Speculation about a new album was furthered when the remaining members of Fluke released a series of singles in 2001 and 2002. "Slap It: The Return" signaled a break from the past, with the writing credits listed simply as "Bryant/Fugler", while "Pulse" exemplified a darker style and was released on the One Little Indian label.
Two "Best Of" albums were also released in 2001 and 2002, Progressive History X, a compilation spanning their ten year producing history, and Progressive History XXX, a three CD box-set including many rare and hard to find mixes.
In 2002, The Fluke DJs were formed, a live-show pairing of Fugler and Hugh Bryder. Bryder was a DJ who had assisted Fluke in their live performances since 1993 and had worked with DJs such as Seb Fontaine while holding a DJ residency at MTV's special event parties. This seemed to indicate further rifts within the band as this DJ combination included neither Bryant nor Tournier. Fugler denied these rumours, claiming that the band merely needed some time away from each other after their intense work on Risotto.
Preceded by the single "Hang Tough", Fluke released their fifth studio album Puppy in 2003, six years after Risotto and their first as a duo. 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 a Kraftwerk inspired song called "Expo". Guitarist and touring member Neil Davenport featured on six songs.
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 ... 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 released in CD and vinyl formats. The track was used 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 appearing in the UK top 40.
In 2005, Bryant and Fugler started a new project called 2 Bit Pie, teaming up with Jan Burton, Wild Oscar, Robin Goodridge, Dilshani Weerasinghe, Marli Buck and producer Andy Gray. Their first single "Nobody Never" retained the rough vocals and electronic feel that was characteristic of Fluke, but had a stronger emphasis on live playback and real instruments. On 4 September 2006, 2 Bit Pie released their first album, 2Pie Island, in the UK to minimal critical attention. No further albums were released.
Fluke briefly reunited for a live performance, including all three original members, with a show at The Tabernacle in London on 10 October 2009.
