WHY should I care about this album? This familiar refrain thudded through my head as I listened to this back-from-the-dead offering.

Some may remember main man Alex Paterson's outpourings a decade ago, such as Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld (1991) and U.F. Orb (1992). But I can't imagine that I'm going to be deluged with letters from die-hard fans still clutching their precious vinyl.

Little Fluffy Clouds remains the memorable popular highlight of a career that has been on the life supporting high oxygen of Japanese pop mania for some time. Bicycles And Tricycles is a clever album with carefully crafted leftfield beats, some catchy work on the mike and smooth interplay between tuning in and chilling out.

Yet today's record shelves are much more crowded with similar smartness than they were in the early 1990s, and I hoped for more.

Updated: 09:31 Thursday, May 20, 2004