Laika were formed when Moonshake Mk 1 could no longer bear to stay together. In the alt-rock divorce settlement of the year, Margaret Fiedler got the bassist (John Frenett) and producer (Guy Fixsen) and Dave Callaghan got to keep the drummer (Mig Moreland) and the bandname.
Laika's debut album - 'Silver Apples Of The Moon' - is a searing but groovy thing and 'Coming Down Glass' was my first taster via the 'Pop: Do We Not Like That' Too Pure sampler which also featured killer tracks from Stereolab, PJ Harvey, Th' Faith Healers, Seefeel, Pram, Moonshake, Minxus and Mouse On Mars - all for a couple of quid.
Scattershot drum machine rifles off in seemingly every direction around a solid breakbeat and some beautifully rubbery bass carries the track along to create a setting for Fiedler's disturbing POV-of-a-sex-pest lyric and half-whispered, half-sung vocal.
Spectacular.
Download Laika 'Coming Down Glass' (mp3) (Mediafire)
'Silver Apples of the Moon'
seems to tbe out-of-print but the compilation 'Lost in Space Vol.1: 1993-2002'
isn't a bad place to start.
This debut Laika album seems to be more reminiscent of where Moonshake were on Big Good Angel than Moonshake Mk II turned out to be..... a natural progression no less. And an utterly spellbinding achievement it is too.
ReplyDeleteSome of the densely layered and programmed arrangements here - a cornucopia of crazy samples, sound effects, drum machines, real percussion, ethnic instruments, jazzy flourishes - literally leave you breathless as the tempo hardly lets up at all (Coming Down Glass is the only downtempo moment on the entire album!).....
44 Robbers was even ripped off by Tricky for his album track Lyrics Of Fury (on Pre-Millennium Tension). I mentioned this once to Margaret Fiedler backstage at a 1998 Laika gig in London and she was intrigued!