At last, one of last year's most hotly-fancied new bands deliver their debut album, and it's an absolute classic.

In January 2000, four young men, Jason (voice, piano, guitar), Sam (keyboards, devices), Woody (bass, omnichord) and Butch (drums, percussion), emerged blinking from their bunker with the marvellous Winterlight - the first single on Domino offshoot Dusty Company - which amazed everyone concerned by picking up copious daytime Radio 1 plays, being awarded Single Of the Week in both NME and Melody Maker, selling out its limited pressing in two weeks and slipping into the Top 100. Since then they have toured Britain three times, visited Europe twice, recorded four radio sessions, shot TV shows in Abbey Road and on Brighton Pier, played Scott Walker's Meltdown with Elliot Smith, collected rave reviews and venerable fans with their subsequent singles (Don't Let the Cold In prompted Jarvis Cocker to invite them to support Pulp, Something To Look Forward To took them out on the road with The Delgados) and generally spent the year in a blur of activity.

Somehow, in the middle all that, they managed to record their first album, during occasional, between-tour visits to a studio in Hove. The result, Clearlake Lido, is a surprising, rich and confident collection of psychedelic pop nuggets, marbled with beautiful melodies, arresting arrangements and witty, touching lyrics.

It includes all the singles, the full 7 minute version of Winterlight and live highlights Let Go, Sunday Evening, Jumble Sailing, I Want To Live In A Dream and These Things Are Sent To Try Us.

Unusually, Clearlake like to combine taut songwriting with studio experimentation.

'We aim to write songs that engage people emotionally but are set in their own sonic universe,' says frontman Jason Pegg. 'We're so affected by music. It's a way of bringing order to abstract sound, to balance disarray and beauty and that's why it's eternally fascinating.'

A full UK tour will accompany Clearlake Lido's release on CD and vinyl on April 2, 2001.