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Interview conducted
in August 2003
LATEST RELEASE:
"WAT" |
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| |  | |    | | By Anthony Augendre | | Photos all rights reserved |
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Laibach, the musical side of a group including painters, writers, dancers and actors, started in 1980 in Trbvlje, Solvenia, a republic of former Yugoslavia. In 1983, the band intended to release an album but the Tito-like government's censorship prevented it. It also forbid artists to perform on stage and delayed the release of the album. We'll have to wait until 1985 to hear the Laibach's experimentations on a LP released by the Hamburg's label, Walter Ulbricht. So their first album called "LAIBACH" came out, quickly followed by "Rekapitulacija 1980-84" and "Neue Konservativ". These productions were an incongruous mix of industrial music like pioneers such as Throbbing Gristle or Cabaret Voltaire played, and retro recordings' collages. The spirit of Test Department, of the Residents, of the German rock and the Wagner's openings could be found in this first album. Grey Area, the archives' department of Mute, also released in 1997 a live concert dating of 1984, "M.B December 21, 1984", as a tribute to Laibach's first singer, Thomaz Hostnik who died in 1982. In 1986, "NOVA AKROPOLA", released on the English label, Cherry Red, proved to be a decisive turn in the band's career. It engraved on marble Laibach's immutable style, that is to say the excessively guttural German choirs, with the Austrian rolling "r" under a quasi liturgical inspiration . As for the music, diatribe manifested itself by huge military percussions consorting with strings sampled on the work of Bernard Hermann, the appointed composer of Hitchcock's films. We nearly found the same tracks on the live album, "The Occupied 1985 Europe Tour", partly recorded by Graeme Revell of SPK, a star of the Australian noise music (currently the composer of some Hollywood shitty films). Laibach's international success began in 1987 with the album "OPUS DEI" on the label Mute. The Laibach concept consists in showing that some links unify art, pop music and totalitarianism. The cover of popular hits in a martial way is one of the expressions of this concept. For instance, the title Life Is Life of the band Opus, the Eurovision's Austrian entrant, got a good thrashing by the harsh Slovenians. Then, they got involved with a composer, heir of the great Tyrolian variety. The phenomenon got bigger for they used a brutal graphical aesthetic. For instance, the center of the LP "Opus Dei", used a drawing of John Heartfield, a German illustrator who risked his life by openly opposing the nazi regime. The tracks One Vision of Queen, and Sympathy for the Devil of Rolling Stones underwent the same crazy musical treatment which Daniel Miller, the boss of Mute and big fan of Laibach's humour, loved. A part of the mystery was revealed when we learned that the next album, "LET IT BE" released in 1988, a complete take-off of The Beatles, was the work of a French musician, Bertrand Burgalat. This great arranger, who will later create the label Tricatel, was then working in the Slovenians' shadow and also took part in the album "KAPITAL" in 1992, a brilliant diversion of hip-hop rhythmics, very warlike, which characterize this quatuor. Laibach announced there capitalism' death, sampled the soundtracks of Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby", Godard's "Alphaville" and didn't hide their fascination of Fritz Lang's cinema. In the meantime, some compositions created for theatre's plays ("Macbeth" on Mute in 1989 following "Krst Pod Triglavom Baptism" released in 1987 on Sub Rosa) were released. But in 1994, things went bad with the very kitch "NATO", certainly a commercial success, but a more popular approach of electronic. This album, marked by the Bosnian conflict and the situation in Europe after the fall of Berlin's wall, was mainly made up of great pacifist and anti-military hits (indeed, Alle Gegen Alle of DAF is also an anti-militarist hit), it was given to the General Secretary of N.A.T.O., Willy Claes by Zoran Thaler, the Slovenian minister of Foreign Affairs. With themes of liberty, pacifism and states without territories that the band will sing in Sarajevo on November 20, 1994, the official last day of the war as seen on the 1996 live/video, "Occupied Nato Tour". The brilliant career of Laibach will culminate with "JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTARS" in 1996. Then, Laibach created a visionary metal sound, the new sound is a pasty bulk made of counterpoints à la Bach and big church organs. The voice of the singer is still inimitable, whatever the counterfeiter Rammstein thinks. The last album, "WAT" resumes with their old political spirit. The critic of religion and pop-music has been replaced by a more pessimistic view of the world. The band sings "Ganz Kaput" ("Quite broken") on an old-school electro-industrial background, with arrangements done by the technoïd Umek for the enegic tension of the sets. Always funny for those who understand the concept. | | |  | | | | | |         | |
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