Customer Reviews

Lost in Space

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Laika is a unique blend of ambient, electronica, and trip hop. "Tasteful restraint" sums up their approach to the genre. Guy Fixsen's choice of sonic elements and his arrangements make these tracks more timeless than most of their trip hop contemporaries. Portisheads' "Dummy" is still a work of genius, but many of its production elements already make the CD sound sadly dated. Laika's songs don't share that problem.

The underlying tracks are a mix of synth based soundscapes, atmospheric samples, live instrumentation, ambient percussion and border-line d-n-b drums (Laika crossed that border on the more recent "Wherever I Am I Am What Is Missing").

Margaret Fiedler's vocals float like a wistful mist over the top of these tracks one moment and cut through them with a gentle urgency the next. Her voice has just that right mix of female-chill-out smoothness and original personality to work within this context. Purely ambient music is intended to create atmosphere, allowing the listener give the music itself as much or as little attention as they choose. Most vocal music makes poor ambient, since vocals and the narrative nature of lyrics tend to demand attention. But even Laika's lyrics have an ambient quality. The listener can tune them out altogether and let the vocal be just another element in the soundscape, or focus on them at any point be rewarded with intriguing, poignant images that add to the atmosphere.

The melodies are sparse. Laika approaches vocals as an equal partner in the total piece. Rather than instruments and arrangement merely framing and supporting the melody, they share equal responsibility for the listening experience, and the sparseness of the melodies maintains balance.

Disc 1 hardly sounds like a compilation. Even though the tracks were recorded over a nine year period, the CD is as coherent as the best concept album. Hard to believe some of these tracks are more than 10 years old. It's best to think of disc 2 as a bonus CD, as it is a little more uneven from track to track. But as a bonus CD, it is quite a plus to the package.

A nice listening experience that can fit quite a range of moods.

In a perfect world, Laika would be the most popular band in the world. Would you expect anything less from a genius like Guy Fixsen? For those of you who haven't heard this band- they have a very exotic sound. Vocalist Margaret Fiedler's velvety almost spoken word-like voice is the perfect compliment to Fixsen's rhythmic exotic syncopations. These songs would work great as instrumentals for the most part, but Fiedler takes them to another level not only vocally, but with her clever and unique lyrics. Laika have currently released 3 studio records all of which are superb. This record is a nice addition because the remixes of familiar songs don't sound so familiar after all and there are some unreleased tracks. For all their knob twiddling and programming expertise, Laika is definitely a band of superior musicians as well as -witnessed by their live performance. What else can I say - Laika are truly a band to be treasured.