Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

the MUSIC OF MeMOrY aND FOrGettING:
GLOBaL eChOeS OF SpUtNIK II
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themes from ‘60s movies and television shows (including Psycho, Vertigo, and
Mission Impossible), the group composed its own music with a sound one critic
described as bouncing “between endless summer, lurching polka, spy fick, and
spaghetti western themes. Sometimes moody, sometimes trippy . . . party music
supreme.” 26 the quartet has released six albums since its founding in 1987 and
counts Pulp Fiction director, Quentin tarantino, among its diehard fans. 27
With a career that spanned the transition from the end of Soviet communism
to the age of the global electronic village, Laika and the Cosmonauts were
among the frst musical ensembles to tap the appeal of campy nostalgia for
things (formerly) Soviet to a range of audiences. Others who mastered the
appropriation of Soviet symbols and themes included rasputin Stoy, whose
German synth-pop band CCCp found an enthusiastic following in alternative
dance clubs. along with several homages to the Soviet space program, the
band’s 1996 album, Cosmos, includes a cut called “Laika, Laika” with the enthusiastic
participation of the russian army chorus.
Over the last decade, however, explicit references to the Soviet past have
become vaguer, focusing instead on a fairly generic nostalgia for the early space
race or on the fgure of the frst space dog herself. For example, the american
indie rock-power pop band Sputnik dedicated a smoky, strummed guitar ballad
to Laika in 2004, but the other tracks on its debut album Meet Sputnik make
little or no reference to the space race. Following the lead of the Leningrad
Cowboys, the virtual band Gorillaz titled their hit remix album of 2002
Laika Come Home, combining the name of the Soviet space dog with the title
commonly associated with the anglo-american canine hero Lassie. While the
album art evokes the glory days of dogs and chimps in space, the music consists
of re-mixes of the group’s frst (eponymous) album in reggae and dub style.
Clearly for musicians, Laika’s association with the creative possibilities and
costs of innovation continues to serve as a compelling touchstone. the most
explicit homage to the space dog and her legacy belongs to the eclectic British
quartet, Laika, which uses sampling and electronics to achieve a celestial,
innovative sound and features an image of the dog on all of its album covers.
Founded in 1994, the group released fve albums before “taking a break” in
November 2007, the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik II. While the
group’s “classic” sound is best exemplifed in collections such as Silver Apples
of the Moon (1995) and Sounds of the Satellites (1997), the incorporation of blues
elements in Good Looking Blues (2000) followed from the group’s determination
to confound expectations. according to their Web site: “they’re not a rock
band, but they play guitars. they’re not an ‘electronic’ group in the usual sense
26. andy ellis,“the amazing Colossal Band,” Guitar Player 29, no. 5 (May 1995): 129.
27. “Laika and the Cosmonauts,” http://www.laikaandthecosmonauts.com/news/index.php3 (accessed
January 25, 2008).