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Smith produced, with beats programmed on a laptop, an Akai MPC and Logic, and a Roland RE-201 echo. Rodaidh McDonald engineered and co-mixed, aiming to keep the sparse demo sound and leaving incidental noises in the mix. Lyrics are by Sim and Madley Croft, except "Fantasy" (Sim) and "Shelter" (Croft). Singles were "Crystalised", "Basic Space", "Islands" and "VCR"; bonus covers include Aaliyah's "Hot Like Fire" and Womack and Womack's "Teardrops". It is double platinum in the UK and gold in the US. Metacritic scored it 87; Pitchfork gave 8.7, NME 8 and the Guardian named it best record of 2009. Jon Caramanica wrote in the New York Times that though they sing to each other, it rarely feels intimate, and Madley Croft told Loud And Quiet that they are never singing to each other. NME ranked it 237th among its 500 greatest albums.