LAIBACH SHARE NEW VIDEO FOR TITLE TRACK OF MUSICK LP | ALBUM SET FOR RELEASE MAY 1
MUTE
Laibach have shared the video for the title track from their forthcoming album, their most pop outing to date. The new album finds Laibach simultaneously celebrating and playfully critiquing our present era of warped reality and gaudy AI copycatting with a collection of undeniably catchy pop that revels in hyper-driven post-modernity: MUSICK is intensely pop, but it’s also intensely Laibach.
The video was filmed in the Latvian Academy of Sciences, a hyperreal totem of Socialist Classicism, and depicts Laibach’s frontman kept alive by the very thing that sickens him: MUSICK. The video is directed by Morten Traavik – who arranged for the band to travel to North Korea and documented it in the film Liberation Day (2016) and directed their 2014 video for ‘The Whistleblowers,’ who explains, “In line with Laibach´s general artistic and philosophical values, we´re aiming for the perfect union of George Orwell and Lady Gaga.”
Co-produced by Richard X (whose credits include Sugababes, Goldfrapp, and New Order), with guest vocals by Ghanaian singer Wiyaala, ‘Musick’ speaks of oversaturation, being sick of music at a time when there is so much of it that we can barely engage. The track also speaks to another kind of sickness: a pathological devotion to music – “an obsession, a kind of drug” – which continues to drive Laibach in this era of oversaturation.
The group took a maximalist approach while making the album in their Ljubljana studio. Surrounding themselves with every music-making artefact they could find, from analogue synths to toys to computers stuffed full with sound apps, they invited collaborators from Slovenia and beyond.
Guests on the album each bring new aspects to the Laibach machine and include electropop producer Richard X; Senidah, one of the region’s biggest pop stars; Ghanian artist Wiyaala, the “Lioness of Africa”, who they first saw in an underground club in Ljubljana; long-time collaborator Donna Marina Mårtensson; Manca Trampuš, the frontwoman of the Slovenian indie band Koala Voice; and Gregor Strasbergar from the band MRFY, one of the most compelling alternative acts in Slovenia.
During the recording, Laibach immersed themselves in a broad spectrum of contemporary music production, from K‑pop and J‑pop to ’90s Eurodance. They explain, “The creative process within the group usually doesn’t begin with the question ‘what genre?’, but rather with ‘what necessity?’ Sometimes it is a political fact, at other times an aesthetic experiment, and at others simply the desire to offer the algorithm something it cannot digest. So, if today someone thinks we are K-pop newcomers of the year, then we have clearly understood the spirit of the times – although, of course, we are not K-pop (but L-pop). The tracks on the forthcoming album are formally original, as they emerge from our need to reflect the world. But in reality, the world itself is already a collage of clichés, choruses, and beats. We simply appropriate them and reorganise them.”
As in their previous work, MUSICK sees Laibach take the tools of authoritarianism into their own hands. Their use of algorithmic tricks, AI systems, and pop tropes is not simply a critique of the sickness-inducing music industry, but something more radical – an acceptance of the tension between human and machine, and the potential for resistance to the algorithm. Each track adheres to familiar tropes, forms, and themes – but this compliance holds the potential for subversion. “The entire album engages directly with this tension,” say Laibach. “The tracks are designed to bypass algorithmic detection, to implant doubt – the most essential virtue of thought – and to reinstate the disruptive, playful folly of the court jester in a system that demands seamless predictability.”
Laibach embark on the first leg of their MUSICK tour on May 18th in Graz, before travelling through Europe in the summer. The band will host a press conference in Ljubljana on April 16th and, ahead of their tour, will perform a very special “dress rehearsal” in Trbovlje on May 14th.
Tour Dates
18 May – Graz (AT) Orpheum
19 May – Schorndorf (DE), Manufaktur
20 May – Cologne (DE), Essigfabrik
22 May – Aarhus (DK), VoxHall
23 May. – Gothenburg (SE), Filmstudion
24 May – Stockholm (SE), Nya Circus
26 May – Helsinki (FI), Savoy Theatre
27 May – Tallinn (EE), Kultuurikeskus
28 May – Riga (LV), Spelet Concert Hall
29 May – Vilnius (LT), Loftas
30 May – Warsaw (PL), Progresja
31 May – Prague (CZ), Palac Akropolis
2 June – Leipzig (DE), Täubchenthal
3 June – Munich (DE), Muffathalle
4 June, Klagenfurt (AT), Burghof
27 June – Maribor (SI), Festival Lent
24 July – Castle (SI), Kolpa Music Festival
25 Sep – Ljubljana (SI), Kino Šiška
26 Sep – Ljubljana (SI), Kino Šiška
29 Sep – London (UK), Islington Assembly Hall
30 Sep – Manchester (UK), Ritz
1 Oct – Southampton (UK), 1865
2 Oct – Canterbury (UK), The Gulbenkian
4 Oct – Gent (BE). Democrazy
6 Oct – Bochum (DE), Zeche
7 Oct – Nijmegen (NL), Doornroosje
8 Oct – Hamburg (DE), Große Freiheit 36
9 Oct – Oslo (NO), Rockefeller Music Hall
11 Oct – Copenhagen (DK), Bremen Teater
13 Oct – Berlin (DE), Huxleys Neue Welt
14 Oct – Dresden (DE), Reithalle
15 Oct – Brno (CZ), Fleda
16 Oct – Zagreb (HR), Boogaloo
Artist Links
Photo Credit: Nika H. Praper & Ludvik
