Laika (band)

Laika
Origin	London, England
Genres	Downtempo Electronica Experimental Trip hop
Years active	1993–c. 2003
Labels	Too Pure
Website	http://www.laika.org/
Members	Margaret Fiedler Guy Fixsen Lou Ciccotelli
Past members	John Frenett Rob Ellis Louise Elliot

Laika is a British band founded in 1993 by the ex-members of Moonshake, Margaret Fiedler and John Frenett, and producer and engineer Guy Fixsen. The band was named after the Russian dog Laika, the first animal to orbit the earth.

Musically, the band could be described as electronica with "dreamy" female vocals. However, it also relies on a more organic approach to songwriting with live drums and percussion, together with guitars and samples, creating a complex layered and polyrhythmic blend of beats and diverse analogue sounds that defies simple categorization.

Fiedler, born in Chicago, USA, (and previously an early member of Ultra Vivid Scene and a collaborator with Moby) moved from New York City to London in 1989 in search of music which better suited her interests. The first significant band she joined was Moonshake, in which she was one of two lead vocalists, a songwriter and a multi-instrumentalist predominantly playing guitar, keyboards and samplers. Moonshake's songwriting was split between Fiedler and the other singer, David Callahan, who had a very different style: Callahan favoured an art-punk storytelling approach with a dub/funk undercurrent while Fiedler preferred a more enveloping and abstract approach drawing on rhythmic Krautrock-esque loops and murmured vocals. The early Moonshake records (released on the Too Pure label) were engineered by the producer Guy Fixsen, who had also worked with bands including My Bloody Valentine and The Breeders.

...
Wikipedia