Laika - Sounds of the Satellites

It sucks so i like it

Among my favorite albums, Sounds of the Satellites is certainly the most reasonable and perhaps even the best. It has no horrific noises, no dissonance, no 20-minute tracks, no laughable vocals/lyrics, and no Avant-bullshit. It is earwormy, vibey, simple, lush, groovy, placid, and frankly perfect. Which is boring. I normally find joy in art’s imperfections (and therefore humanity). Yet, every time I listen to Sounds I am shocked at how much I end up loving it. Even more shocking perhaps is the fact that this album is not particularly well-liked or popular among other people. 

Prairie Dog opens the album and sets the stage. The track is built off of a single drum and bass groove that persists throughout the track. Notably this groove involves both electronic samples and live instruments. On top of this repeated groove come in hushed vocals from Margaret Fiedler along with guitar, synth, flute, vibraphone, and other electronic noises. As mellow as the song is, the lyrics are far from vapid. The chorus even contains one of my favorite couplets: “If I could pull the nerves from my skin / I would”. How tender yet horrific. The second half of the track constitutes what could be the Trip-Hop equivalent of a psychedelic jam. The instruments layer on top of one another while the groove hypnotizes and the vocals twist the knife. I cannot help but stare at the wall, stop what I am doing, be enamoured. 

Much like how prairie dog is an evil word, Trip-Hop is somewhat of a dirty one. Noted asshole Geoff Barrow (of Portishead) thinks it never existed and should properly be categorized as Downtempo. Besides the point, Sounds is textbook Trip-Hop in the way it mixes its live and electronic sounds to make these grooves. But its reach spans much farther than Portishead or Massive Attack could ever muster. Rather than just emulating the modern sounds of Hip-Hop and Electronic Dance, Laika looks towards their predecessors’ predecessors. Their use of melody, improvisation, rhythm, and repetition is far more similar to what Miles Davis, Kraftwerk, and Can were doing in the late 60s/early 70s and even what This Heat was doing in the late 70s (notice how these are some of my favorite albums?). 

The second track, Breather, is seven minutes of pure hypnosis and the third track Out of Sight and Snowblind is a notable tempo shift. At a faster pace, the duality of the music’s existence between anxiety and relaxation takes a new form. Half of the instruments agitatedly play fast and sharp and the other half play smooth and lethargic. Heart beats increase, brain waves decrease. Though, truthfully, the only agitating thing in the track are the dreaded male vocals. 

Almost Sleeping is the hit off the album and perhaps the best track. Yet it is also a track my ex-girlfriend described as “the kind of music you hear when walking around a Marshall Field’s”. Partway between gelatin, a bed, soup, outer space, and a womb; the track is pure homeostasis. Much like the rest of the album, it can be microscopically decompiled. Each sound is immaculate, purposeful, and worth listening to. You can also just let it wash over you and help you dream. Both, neither, the music is 3-dimensional and flat. Read a book or write a book; close your eyes or open them. The track fades away after seven minutes even though it could last for 70. 

After a few tracks, the simplicity of the album becomes overbearing. Each song only has a few things that could possibly separate them from the rest (Poor Gal with its heavy syncopations, Shut Off/Curl Up with its creepiness). The ultimate truth of this album is that it is just 70 minutes of minutiae and stagnation. The vocals are the same in every track, each synth melody works the same way, there is nothing out of place, and I cannot escape it like a black hole. Using my enlightened mind this album is probably not that good? I can pick parts of it out and call it boring, but when these instruments hit my ears all rational thought goes out the window. The only thing that matters is Sounds.