Space Monkeyz Vs. Gorillaz - Space Monkeys vs. Gorillaz: Laika Come Home

Gorillaz remix album. Escapes orbit, floats into space ad infinitum

In some ways, releasing Laika Come Home, a remix album consisting entirely of dub remixes of songs from the first Gorillaz album, was a good idea, because dub remixes very well might have appealed to the same market that the first Gorillaz album did. However, Laika Come Home was both peripheral and unnecessary. The intention was to make chilled out versions of the songs from the self titled album, but whoever made the executive decision to make Laika somehow forgot that Gorillaz was already a chilled out album, and the cutting edge of modern hip hop. So making a reggae remix album for it was both redundant and pointless. However, it seems apparent that the Spacemonkeyz have some kind of talent. Laika at the very least is quite well produced, and they write some fairly good hooks to accompany Damon Albarn's work here. However, the album feels like less of a remix album so much as a dub album of its own that samples the Gorillaz every once in a while (and pretty poorly at that). Song selection is also rather scattered. Hard rockers M1A1 and Punk are chosen for the mix, the former simply a bad decision to remix and the latter having virtually no resemblance to the original whatsoever. Also, songs with obvious dub potential are ignored, Latin Simone and Dracula. Beyond these objective facts, Laika Come Home simply is not a fun listen. During a continuous play, the listener will likely either get bored, develop a strong desire to smoke a joint, or simply fall asleep. For that reason, this album will mostly only appeal to reggae fans, and mostly bore the rest of us. But despite these fundamental flaws, there are a few scattered treasures to be found here. Strictly Rubbadub and Crooked Dub are the obvious winners, and a couple other songs can be enjoyable if the listener is in the mood for this kind of thing October 12, 2008

Gorillaz are undefineable

Ths album, with its drugged out dub sound, truly shows how genre-bending the group is. Although I don't consider it the best album of theirs, (its a little too slow and red-eyed hippie for me), I appreciate where they go with these remixes look forward to the next remix album of theoir mainstream releases. October 5, 2005

Gorillaz Get 'Planet of the Apes' Treatment

Obviously you're a Gorillaz fan, or you wouln't be researching this 3rd generation remix project.
If you prefered the pop/hip hop, up-beat feel of their debut album to the tracks with reggae/dub leanings, then run, run and hide!
Much like Tim Burton 're-imagined' Planet of the Apes, the Gorillaz debut has had it's bare bones removed and completely reworked, this time as a deep chill dub/reggae album, by a couple of guys calling themselves 'Space Monkeys'. Most of the songs are hardly recognisable, but who would want to buy the same album twice?
If I had found this within 12 months of getting the first album, I would have been annoyed and bitterly disappointed. Now, three years down the track, this is a surprise, a real gem and welcome listening.
Some of the feel from the debut has been completely inverted, like the fury of M1A1 converted to arms-in-the-air celebration and of course Punk is now De-Punked, while some of the spookier moments like Starshine and Soundcheck (Gravity) are dropped back to an almost X-Files torch waving creepiness.
On the whole this is a much more cohesive album, but with limited appeal to the public at large. You won't hear any of this on the radio.
I'd recommend this as great music at work (I'm in an art studio, so I guess that helps), a soundtrack to the comics of James Hewlitt or pumpin' at a back yard bar-be-que.
Let's just hope this collective project will realease some new music eventually. April 6, 2004

Strong showing

I first heard this album while in my friend's car. At the time, it sounded flat and, frankly, boring. The problem, as I later learned, was that I was listening to it in the car. With the engine running, I missed what this album's all about, those funky, cool, out-of-left-field tweeks and alterations of the original that make it a great dub album. After sitting in my apartment and having a little time to listen more carefully, this album has grown on me. This album is absolutely novel, you will probably not even recognize a few of the tracks at the first few listens. The sound is smooth, downtempo, beautiful, electronic.
That the Gorillaz source material holds up under this dub is no small recognition of its quality. That the dubbing has taken the material to such great new places speaks to the ability of the "Space Monkeys".
Recommended December 27, 2003

The naysayers either have innate bias or don't get it....

...and that's ok, too.
Let's review the flaws, first:
1) Its the same songs, AGAIN.
2) Its nothing like the source material.

OK, downsides listed. Perfectly respectable downsides, yes, we all already own these songs once or twice. However, true to roots dub, that's sort of the point and its well represented here. And, since it is well represented here, its nothing like the original rock songs, its not even like the hiphop songs, its dub.

You get dub (real dub, not electronic thumpathumpa crap) when a producer would take the source material and manipulate it to create fresh music for the sound systems. Vocals out, lead insturments out, rhythm in. Up the bass, up the drums, and let it roll. Punch in a riff, punch in a word, then out again and run the whole thing through more reverb than you can shake a stick at. That's what you've got here. And its not just dub, but its fantastically well done dub. Its an album that's tuned for raving Gorillaz fans, dub fans, and ideally for people who are both. Or will become both.

This may not be the record for you, thankfully Amazon provides you with sound samples. Use them. What you hear is what you get, so stop whining about how much it sucks cause its the same songs over again or because its a style you don't like. December 19, 2003

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