Laika Come Home is a remix album by a British virtual band Gorillaz, released in July 2002. Unlike a typical remix album, it is done by just one group, Spacemonkeyz. It contains most of the songs from Gorillaz' first album, Gorillaz, but remixed in dub and reggae style. The album features Terry Hall, U Brown, Earl Sixteen and 2-D. One single, "Lil' Dub Chefin'", was released from the album on 22 July 2002, with moderate success. The limited edition was packed in digipak, featuring two hidden tracks. In 2004, the album was packaged with 2001's Gorillaz in a box set as part of EMI's "2CD Originals" collection. The album's title is a reference to Laika, the Soviet space dog, and the film Lassie Come Home. The album contains mixes of every song on the original album except "Double Bass", "Latin Simone (¿Que Pasa Contigo?)", and "Rock the House".
Background The Spacemonkeyz appear to be first referenced before the album in the "Tomorrow Comes Today" video. During the video, in the background, a poster can be seen with three pictures of monkeys with spacesuits and the caption "Laugh now but one day we'll be in charge". The artwork is a famous piece of artwork by Banksy, the visual artist who worked with Damon Albarn for Think Tank's artwork and Demon Days producer Danger Mouse in an attack against Paris Hilton. Before the release of the album, the remix of "Tomorrow Comes Today" ("Bañana Baby") was released on the "Tomorrow Comes Today" single in February 2002.
Track listing
Personnel Musicians Damon Albarn – vocals , piano , stylophone , melodica , guitar Spacemonkeyz – instrumentation, programming, guitar, bass, drum programming Miho Hatori – additional vocals Tina Weymouth – additional vocals Michael Smith – horn, horn arrangements , flute Martin Shaw – horn Dan Left Hand – bass Jeff Scantlebury – percussion Jaques Shythé – castanets U Brown – vocals Dennis Rollins – horn Dominic Glover – horn Phil Soul – bass Earl Sixteen – vocals Stuart Zender – bass , clavinet Pete Collins – incendiary device Simon Katz – guitar , organ Brian Pisce – strings Terry Hall – vocals
Technical Gorillaz – production Tom Girling – co-production, engineering, Pro Tools Jason Cox – co-production, engineering Dan Nakamura – production Spacemonkeyz – additional production, re-mixing Pete Collins – assistance
Artwork J.C. Hewlett – illustration Mat Wakeham – art direction Kate McLauchlan – design Roland Hamilton – monkey photos
Charts Chart (2002)PeakpositionUK Albums (OCC)108
Release details The album was released in various countries in July 2002. Country Date Label Format Catalogue United Kingdom 1 July 2002 Parlophone CD 540 3622 2×LP 539 9821 Japan 3 July 2002 Toshiba-EMI CD TOCP-66045 United States 16 July 2002 Astralwerks CD ASW 40362 CD digipak ASW 40522
References