Laika (meaning barker in Russian) was the first living creature to escape the earth’s atmosphere when on November 3, 1957 the Soviet space program launched Sputnik II, a small spaceship helmed by a stray dog that was found on the streets of Moscow. Like their canine cosmonaut namesake, Laika (the band) explore the contours of a largely unknown universe — testing the air and water for a legion of like-minded groups who have followed in their wake. Their music embraces a brave new electronic world, yet remains thoroughly organic, tactile and warm — not at all the sterile, clinical ambience of the lab-coated technicians.

Like all the best music, Laika’s sound is born of contradictory impulses: they may seek to transcend their earthly confines and go “out there” like their favorites Can and Miles Davis, but they stay firmly grounded in the bedrock of the blues, particularly its willingness to confront the dark side of human nature — after all, the original Laika died up there in her little space pod.

Laika first started orbiting the indie rock and electronic scenes in 1993 when vocalist/guitarist Margaret Fiedler left her previous group, Moonshake. She soon began a songwriting partnership with Guy Fixsen, who had co-produced and enigineered Moonshake’s 1992 album, Eva Luna, and previously worked with My Bloody Valentine and The Breeders. With Moonshake’s former bassist, John Frenett, drummer Lou Ciccotelli from the ferocious free jazz-doom metal group God and flautist/saxophonist Louise Elliott in tow, Laika recorded the agit-funk of “44 Robbers” for the Too Pure compilation, Pop — Do We Not Like That?, which was released in February 1994. The more experimental Antenna EP followed in June, showcasing Laika’s predeliction for marimba raindrop grooves, Minimoog textures and magic-realist psycho-sexual dramas.

The group’s first album, Silver Apples of the Moon (named after Morton Subotnick’s all-electronic composition of the same name, as well as a nod to the Irish poet William Butler Yeats), was released in October 1994. Its moody ambience, unique approach to sampling and blend of post-punk howl and dubby immersion led the record to be heralded as “an impressive work of genius” by The Wire and to appear year-end critical lists in both The New York Times and Spin. “The first album sounds quite sort of skittish and paranoid and all over the shop which was where we were at the time,” Fiedler says. “We started making that in 93, and that was when everything up the road was kicking off, the Four Aces [a legendary early drum ’n’ bass club in Hackney] and all of that. If you lived in Dalston and you turned the radio on, it was just Jungle. It had taken over the airwaves for a few mile radius. Which made for some excellent sampling, little fits of Radio 3 would [makes crackling sound] over the top. There’s loads of that on the first album — jammed between two stations… It was a really exciting time and I think our first record kind of reflects that.”

After a long North American tour in 1995 supporting fellow traveller Tricky, Fixsen and Fiedler found themselves stranded in New York for three months during which time they wrote and recorded most of their second album, Sounds of the Satellites, which was released in February 1997. More programmed (although the group steadfastly eschew sequencers live) than previous efforts, Sounds of the Satellites was described by Fiedler as “emotionally more insular… We were up all night and sleeping all day: you get up at like five and then go out and get breakfast, and then work for a few hours and go out get lunch at like midnight, and work for a few more hours and go out and get dinner at four or five in the morning, and then go to Tower and get a video [laughs], and go to bed at seven or eight.” Despite the harsher surfaces and darker depths, Sounds of the Satellites was still dazzling enough that it ended up as one of Melody Maker’s 30 best records of the year.

For 2000’s Good Looking Blues, Laika once again changed tack and took a more ‘rockist’ approach. The album was toured and demo’d extensively before the final version was released with an expanded line-up that included turntables, bass clarinet, trumpet and additional percussion. “At the time a lot of the people we were associated with were people making electronic music with a bit of an organic element to it,” Fixsen explains. “I suppose we were trying to point out the difference between us and them, which was that they came from a more dance background and we came from a live background. Growing up, we were in guitar bands. The difference being an appreciation of people going to play, the fan interaction and people playing together, and how a loop can be a great, hypnotic thing, but actually the sound of someone trying to be that loop is actually just as great and maybe even better.”

2003’s Wherever I Am, I Am What Is Missing brought yet another change in the recording process. The album was less collaborative than in the past, with only Fiedler, Fixsen and Ciccotelli playing and most of the music recorded by Fixsen himself.  “Most of the music was recorded in 2001,” Fixsen says. “There were two bursts of activity and a lot of empty spaces in between actually. A lot of the music was recorded at my place while Margaret was off galavanting around the world with PJ Harvey and getting drunk, going around Australia and America and hanging around with Bono and shit, while I was stuck in my little room… I sort of set myself a task to stop myself from going mad in my little room: ‘Today I’m going to write a song from beginning to end and then I’m just going to forget about it,’ whereas in the past I would’ve worked on it over a period of weeks. There is a lot of spontaneity for a record that took three and a half years to make.”

Most of what appears on the album is first takes, with only a soupçon of studio trickery. Fittingly, Fiedler changed her lyrical approach to match this lack of artifice. Gone are the impressionistic, almost fabulist lyrics inspired by writers like Toni Morrison and the classic female blues singers that marked the first three albums. In their place are more baldly personal lyrics without any veil of ornamentation… and sometimes they even rhyme! It was all part of an effort, as Fixsen says, to stop getting obsessed about every minute detail on the record, to “Actively get to the heart of the thing, actively get to the emotions. You’re thinking that it’s all about the atmosphere around what you’re doing, but it’s much more about the heart of things rather than the peripheral things.”

What set Laika apart from other electronic acts at the start of their career was their organic approach to the otherwise digital constraints of this genre.  They chose instruments over sequencers with samples and electronics being played live, allowing the music to breathe by giving it the human touch.  Laika’s rock background gave them a different perspective on the otherwise perfectly looped beats of dance music.  Laika have been an extremely influential force in music, with the likes of Radiohead citing them as a key influence in the writing of ‘Kid A’.

Their music is a seamless blend of disparate styles and diverse influences cajoled into creating something new and unique.