Laika - Sounds Of The Satellites

This is an album by one of those bands which people have only ever heard of, not actually heard. However, I think this is a bad thing. They quite succesfully mix the jazzy sound of Portishead with the beat intensive mood of Massive Attack, occasionally throwing in a bit of trance or techno beat for good measure. The album is a 77 minute monster of changing style, which always tries to return to the quality of the first track, but never quite making it, which causes me no trouble, as the first track is quite superb, the others just very good.

The album starts with ‘Prairie Dog’, a heavy beat track, similar to ‘Karmacoma’ by Massive Attack, another hand off to the band that influence them heavily, moving swiftlly on through trancey almost-instrumentals and beat heavy pieces onto ‘Poor Gal’, which I’m sure is a Portishead track. The album ends on the trance teaser, ending with the obligatory secret track, a description of the real Laika’s experiences in space, including the reception of morse coded BOW BOW messages......

Bill