And then there were two.

Bar a single BBC live session, No-Man remained quiet for the first third of 1994. In April, their second album - 'Flowermouth' - was released. It brought all of the disagreements and contradictions about the band's music to the fore, but in contrast to earlier attempts it did so in a way that unified them, and won the band many new admirers. No-Man had broadened all aspects of their work by re-evaluating their original influences, the frontier musicians who'd gotten them into music in the first place - musicians and conceptualists like Miles Davis, Kate Bush, and Talk Talk (none of them artists to take the easy route).

The result was an audacious melange - both timely and independent of trends - which drew together contemporary dance pop, collective improvisation, expansive art-rock, moody minimalism, and even an assertive '90s remodelling of progressive rock. Electro-acoustic symphonics sat next to Erasure-ish synth pop, sleepy dance-romance and multi-textured epics marrying drum loops to avant-garde textures, distinct and maverick instrumental voices to carefully constructed and cunningly orchestrated songs.

The rich and panoramic sound of 'Flowermouth' featured an emphatic sweep of guest players. There were extensive contributions from Robert Fripp and his King Crimson bandmate Mel Collins as well as performances by Lisa Gerrard (of Dead Can Dance), Ian Carr, Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri, and Chris Maitland. Ben Coleman, too, had made his last work with the band some of his best.

'Flowermouth' was the band's most ambitious and best-selling album to date, and remains a fan favourite. The momentum was still such that the Richard Barbieri/Tim Bowness album 'Flame' (a set of "ambient torch songs" midway between No-Man's work and Japan's 'Tin Drum') could be released on One Little Indian alongside the new No-Man album.

But it was obvious by now that No-Man couldn't continue along the path which their record label wanted them to follow. Following the release of 'Flowermouth', relations grew even more distant.

The band were still signed to Epic Records in America,who released a US-only single - 'Taking It Like A Man' - at the same time as 'Flowermouth'. Not only was it a 'Loveblows & Lovecries' outtake, it was backed with a series of hardcore techno club remixes which the band had nothing to do with. It reached number 34 on the Billboard dance chart, but already seemed like past history.

By the end of the year No-Man had parted company with One Little Indian. A planned single, 'You Grow More Beautiful', was shelved and the band's plans for a tour of theatre venues was abandoned due to lack of budget and support.

Bar a few final radio sessions, and a brief three-song set as a duo-with-backing-tapes at the Halloween Society film evening in October, No-Man effectively retired from live performance.

Left to their own devices in No-Man's Land, the duo of Tim and Steven incubated new material while working on two separate albums: a expansive 'Flowermouth' follow-up tentatively called 'Lighthouse' and a more immediate and beat-driven project called 'Wild Opera'.

In March 1995, No-Man released the 'Flowermix' cassette album via Hidden Art. A set of trance-techno-meets-art-rock dance remixes of 'Flowermouth' tracks, it was much more to the bands own tastes. Mixes were contributed by Steven himself, Prophets of Bliss, Os (a sound engineer ally from gigs in Cambridge, soon to work with Tim in the Darkroom project), Music By Numbers (a.ka. Tim Closs, later to reinvent himself as Tears In X-Ray Eyes) and David Kosten (shortly to become better known as Faultline).

'Flowermix' was reissued as a Hidden Art CD album in September 1995 with a slightly different tracklisting, including a 12-minute Robert Fripp/Steven Wilson soundscape from the 'Flowermouth' sessions. It was accompanied by 'Heaven Taste', which compiled the more ambient and cinematic No-Man B-sides and rarities from the One Little Indian years, including a gorgeous cover of Nick Drake's song Road.

Otherwise, the year was dominated by other projects. In Steven's case, this was Porcupine Tree, which was rapidly developing a live following and a momentum of its own. Tim spent more time with Michael Bearpark and pianist Peter Chilvers in the ambient folk trio Samuel Smiles, which he'd played in on and off over the previous few years.

Behind the scenes, work was also continuing on new No-Man recordings.

In 1996, No-Man announced their return on a new label - 3rd Stone Ltd., home of Spacemen 3 and Bark Psychosis. The fresh start was spearheaded in May by the bleak and baleful 'Housewives Hooked On Heroin' single: Single of the Fortnight in 'Hot Press; magazine and a taster for the 'Wild Opera' album which followed in September.

'Wild Opera' was a far darker, more beat-driven and wilfully exploratory recording than 'Flowermouth', with lyrics and moods musing on a fractured, threatening and often crushing world. No-Man's taste for melancholy balladry, cinematic art-rock soundscaping and good tunes was still in evidence. This time, however, it was joined by savage industrial dance, luscious trip hop and odder pop excursions than the band had ever attempted before.

Minus Ben Coleman and the extensive guest list of 'Flowermouth' pared back almost entirely to the core duo of Tim and Steven, 'Wild Opera' made up for its lack of a supporting cast by mining Tim and Steven's own sonic imagination and production ideas - to great effect. Most of the album had emerged from a series of semi-spontaneous improvisations recorded over a few hours rather than planned-out attempts at songwriting. The raw results of three such sessions appeared on the album, revealing new and more direct No-Man working methods.

'Wild Opera' was a reinvention that flung itself into the faces of a press that were still coming to grips with the band's re-emergence, and consequently reviews ranged from the savagely ecstatic to the cluelessly confused. Over the years the album would become an insidious musical force, gradually gaining more and more underground attention.

Keeping up the momentum, one of the best 'Wild Opera' tracks - 'Dry Cleaning Ray' - was released as a single in 1997. Based on a twisting organ hook, it was an elegant outlining of a life of frustration and obscurity, its bleak content offset by its blatant pop melodics.

The single also spawned the 'Dry Cleaning Ray' mini-album, a companion release to 'Wild Opera'. Even more eclectic than its predecessor, 'Dry Cleaning Ray' presented drastically reworked or remixed 'Wild Opera' material (including 'Punished For Being Born', Muslimgauze's bizarre reinvention of 'Housewives Hooked On Heroin'), freefalling instrumental moments and a delirious cover version of Serge Gainsbourg 'Evelyn'.

Evidence that the band was continuing to explore new territories was shown by new songs such as the seething, venomous isolationist songscape of 'Sicknote', another instant No-Man classic.

No-Man remained quiet for most of 1998 while Tim and Steven worked separately on other projects: Porcupine Tree, Darkroom, Samuel Smiles, Bass Communion and I.E.M.

The silence was broken in August 1998, when the beautifully melancholic 'Carolina Skeletons' EP was released. The title track was No-Man's most glorious piano ballad to date, and the other songs revealed a smoother, more lustrous side to the band following the abrasiveness of the past two years' releases.

Later in the year, No-Man released 'Radio Sessions: 1992-96', compiling various No-Man moments retrieved from the airwaves and featuring various line-ups of the band including several "unplugged" moments and performances by both Chris Maitland and Porcupine Tree bassist Colin Edwin, as well as Jansen, Barbieri and Karn.

1999 was a year of reissues.

In the summer 'Speak' finally got a full CD album issue (on Italian label Materiali Sonori), six years after the cassette release. A sustained and gorgeous mood-piece of densely organic soundscapes, quiet ambition and heartfelt emotionalism, the album fully revealed No-Man's more ambient and impressionistic side. and rapidly proved that it had remained a work of genuine beauty and substance. The trio of Steven's atmospheres, Ben Coleman's sensual violin shapes and Tim's abstract, cryptic balladry of hopes, doubts and abandonment rendered 'Speak' a timeless collection of music: one which contained some of No-Man's most beautiful and haunting moments. Tim re-sang his vocals for the CD release and Steven took the opportunity to fix or re-record missing or damaged instrumental tracks.

A remixed and remastered 'Flowermouth' (reissued by 3rd Stone Records) was also back in the shops in autumn 1999.

As welcome as these reissues were, since the release of 'Carolina Skeletons' there had been no sign of No-Man's next album (at this point still called 'Lighthouse'). A brief reminder of the No-Man alliance came when Tim Bowness/Samuel Smiles supported Porcupine Tree on a couple of dates on their UK tour. But for the most part, No-Man were hidden away - reworking, remixing and rethinking, trying to perfect the emerging songs...