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Dusted Reviews
Artist: Laika Album: Wherever I Am I Am What Is Missing Label: Too Pure Review date: Oct. 27, 2003 |
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You get the lurching stop-action rhythms of ’70s krautrock, filtered through thumping house. You get the gloom and physicality of what the kids once called “trip-hop.” You get a few gimmicks sprinkled on top, but nothing Raymond Scott wouldn’t do. But there’s something that lifts the music of Laika above its essentials: A balance of melancholy and sobriety.
Sure, this music is sexual. Laika’s 1995 debut Silver Apples of the Moon is one of the only record albums I’m willing to credit with getting me laid. It’s funky, in a sideways sort of way. You could dance to it, if you’re blessed with imagination. But unlike Massive Attack or anything else to which you might easily compare Wherever I Am I Am What Is Missing, it sounds best a little past 4 in the morning, alone in a bedroom through headphones, accompanied by the resolve to surface from depression and shrug off frivolous celebration in favor of, for now, getting things back together. WIAIAWIM could score such a moment of alchemy – self-pity into resolve – with more moody charm than anything the band named after the first dog in space has issued to date.
Unlike 2000’s undercooked Good Looking Blues, which made a joyful noise but refused to burrow in the brain, Wherever I Am I Am What Is Missing is best when it scales down the gimmicks and cruises on simple hooks. Sure, there’s plenty of skittering fun to be had (“Diamonds and Stones,” the gorgeous “Oh”), but the hits here are “Alphabet Soup”, which doesn’t build far above its cop-show funk foundation until the hook soars out like an angel through a sunroof, and “Dirty Bird”, which is mellow with a vengeance.
By Emerson Dameron
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View all articles by Emerson Dameron