Space Monkeyz vs Gorillaz - Laika Come Home (Dub Remix Of Gorillaz)

view Came across this LP quite by chance the other day when a friend who had brought it in the closing down sale a Woolworths for the princely sum of £1, earlier this year, gave it to me as he didn’t like it! Well I can see where he is coming from as this is not going to be to everybody’s tastes as it is a heavy dub style reworking of the Gorillaz debut LP by Space Monkeyz who have worked with the likes of Horace Andy, George Clinton and Jamiroquai.
Now I really enjoyed the remix which made it in to the charts over here on the initial release of Gorillaz in 2001 (Clint Eastwood - Ed Case/Sweetie Irie Refix). However when I got to listen to the Gorillaz LP it was not quite what I was expecting and subsequently I didn’t give it much of a play, so I was rather intrigued as to what I was going to get here.
The LP was originally released in 2002 and what you do get is a stripped down and heavily remixed dub album, with the majority of the songs being completely unrecognizable from their original forms. The album is full of tunes with haunting melodica, throbbing keyboard and sparkly out bursts of echoing horns and deep pounding bass lines. Nothing out of the ordinary there, for those of you with dub music leanings, but it is quite different for those of you with Damon Albarn persuasions. Most of the songs have a quite lovely dreamy appeal, especially “Monkey Racket (Man Research)” and “Starshine (Dub 09)”. While “P45 (5/4)” and “Lil' Dub Chefin' (M1A1)” pick up the pace and have a dubbed up 2-tone sound to them, but then “Lil' Dub Chefin' (M1A1)” should as it features vocals from Terry Hall. Other artists featured on here are U Brown, Earl 16 and 2D. The killer track on here for me is Strictly Rubbadub (Slow Country), with its simple child like piano hook at the beginning and end and featuring the aforementioned U Brown on the mic fandubintastic.
So if you are a fan of the Gorillaz, but never been enlightened by the joys of dub or you can’t stand Damon Albarn, don’t let this cloud your judgement and give this musical journey a try.


Full Track List:

1 Jungle Fresh (19/2000)
2 Strictly Rubbadub (Slow Country)
3 Banana Baby (Tomorrow Comes Today)
4 Monkey Racket (Man Research)
5 De-Punked (Punk)
6 P45 (5/4)
7 Dub 09 (Starshine)
8 Crooked Dub (Soundcheck)
9 Mutant Genus (New Genius)
10 Come Again (Re-Hash)
11 Fistful Of Peanuts (Clint Eastwood), A
12 Lil' Dub Chefin' (M1A1)
13 Fistful Of Peanuts, A - (Version)