When Blab Happy split up, singer/guitarist Mick McCarthy and bassist Tony Owen recruited John Waddington to form Perfume, initially releasing records on their own "Aromasound" label.
Third single "Lover" was picked up on by BBC Radio One DJ's Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley (the latter getting the band in to record a session for her show).
They co-headlined with Travis and toured as a headline act selling out many venues in the UK and were invited to play abroad at events such as the Black Sessions in Paris.
After that, they signed to Big Star Records, and to Paul Weller's publishers Notting Hill, who reissued "Lover" to be followed by the debut album One in 1997, which received glowing reviews in Q and Select magazines.
It's magnificent - an ecstatic, vernal bloom of falsetto and violins that gave me one of those powerful surges of nostalgia that critics always insist on calling a "Proustian rush."