Not for Threes

Post-Black Dog Plaid sound relieved by melody on Not for Threes. Warm chords and gentler contours sit inside the duo's precise programming, and the record never goes soft, and the contrast gives the machines an unexpectedly human pull. The tunefulness feels like freedom rather than retreat. Less ambitious than the Black Dog records behind it, and warmer than any of them.

The melodists of the group, working alone and unembarrassed about writing tunes. Björk turns up, the arrangements are immaculate, and it remains the friendliest great record in this canon.