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.
They made several line-up changes over the years, with credited appearances attributed to Neil Davenport on guitars, Robin Goodridge on drums and Hugh Bryder as a DJ.
In the tour for their fourth album Risotto (1997), they were joined on stage by singer Rachel Stewart, who continued as lead female vocalist and dancer for all of Fluke's live performances between 1997 and 1999.
[7] At this early stage in their career, the band realized that they would experience the greatest artistic freedom if they had their own recording studio and took it upon themselves to obtain their own premises.
[9] This burst of success was followed by two further singles, "Electric Guitar" (sampleⓘ) and "Groovy Feeling", and, in the same year, the release of the group's second album, Six Wheels on My Wagon.
This new album was a distinctly house music production, with uplifting riffs and ambient effects, as opposed to the techno style of their previous release.
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.
Sometimes, on Absurd, Atom Bomb and especially the top-notch Squirt, it takes a terrier-like grip on your concentration, with the muted vocals hissing in your head like Martian broadcasts arriving through your fillings.
[22] In 2000, Fluke produced a promotional CD named The Xmas Demos, which included early versions of many of the tracks intended for the album Puppy.
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.
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 late 2005, Bryant and 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.
[30][31] Although Fluke produced music for the better part of two decades, they remained relatively unknown to a large scale audience and the band members themselves are even less recognizable.
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.
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.'
[37] In an interview with Billboard magazine, Fugler said that he felt that predicted figures for the US electronica boom were overhyped by people who were out of touch with the music scene.
[39] When Fluke was 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 series named Arial Tetsuo.
While Bryant remained on keyboards and programming and with only Davenport being the constant touring member on guitars, Fugler and Stewart were able to motivate the crowd visually with vocals and dancing while Fluke's resident lighting technician, Andy Walton, provided a suitable technology-driven accompaniment to the music.
[40] In 2004, Stewart left Fluke indefinitely, instead focusing on a new project with EMF band member James Atkin, named Beauty School.
[8] 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 Fugler subsequently referred to as "good fun, but ultimately flawed for the dancefloor.