Лайбах: от запретов к национальному иконе Словении

Slovenian music group

Laibach is a Slovenian and Yugoslav avant garde music group associated with the industrial, martial, and neo classical genres. Formed in the mining town of Trbovlje in 1980, Laibach represents the musical wing of the Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) collective, a group which Laibach helped found in 1984. From the early days, the band was subject to controversies and bans due to their use of iconography with parodies and pastiches of elements from totalitarianism, nationalism and militarism, a concept they have preserved throughout their career. Censored and banned in Socialist Yugoslavia and receiving a kind of dissident status, the band embarked on international tours and gradually acquired international fame, which led to wider acceptance in Yugoslavia. After Slovenia became independent in 1991, Laibach's status in the country has turned from rejection to promotion into a national cultural icon. Early Laibach albums were pure industrial, with heavy rhythms and roaring vocals. Later in the mid 1980s, the sound became more richly layered, featuring samples from pop and classical music. The band's lyrics, variously written in Slovene, German and English, are usually delivered by the deep bass vocals of the singer Milan Fras. Initially the lyrics handled war and military themes; later, the focus turned to any highly charged political issue of the moment, sending intentionally ambiguous messages. They recorded several cover versions of popular songs, often turning light melodies into sinister sounding gothic tunes. The band has seen numerous line up changes, with Dejan Knez, Milan Fras, Ervin Markošek and Ivan "Jani" Novak forming the best known line up. They have worked with a number of collaborators and guest musicians. Laibach has also recorded film soundtracks, theatre music and produced works of visual arts, while the band members have embarked on a number of side projects.

Laibach was formed on 1 June 1980 in Trbovlje, a mining industry town. The members chose 1 June as the official date of the band's formation as it was the date of the 1924 violent clashes between Trbovlje workers and the Organization of Yugoslav Nationalists. Laibach is the German language name of the Slovenian capital Ljubljana, a name used during the period when Slovenia was a part of the Habsburg monarchy, as well as during the World War II occupation of Yugoslavia. At the time of formation, the group collaborated with art groups Irwin (painting) and Rdeči Pilot (Red Pilot, theatre). returning him to his private identity. Despite this, the group often referred to him and dedicated various projects to him, including an installation entitled Apologia Laibach, created around Hostnik's self portrait.

At the beginning of 1983, the group resumed its activities with an exhibition in the Prošireni mediji (Expanded Media) gallery in Zagreb. In the "manifesto" the band quoted Stalin ("Artists are engineers of human souls") and Hitler ("Art is sublime, leading to fanaticism"). In the United States they were invited to a reception hosted by the British ambassador. They appeared on the reception wearing their uniforms, and the actor Walter Gotell (known for his role of General Gogol in James Bond film series), who was also present on the reception, saw this as a provocation. Their concert in Šentjurje was visited by only five people due to poor promotion, but the band nevertheless performed the whole set. The group promoted the album in the United States with an eighteen date tour, as well as on a German tour. In 2014, Laibach released the album Spectre, previously announced by the EP record S featuring three songs from the album and one from a 2012 live album. The songs from the new album were also downloadable for limited time for subscribers of their mailing list. In July 2014, Laibach released an EP to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising. The project was commissioned by Poland's National Cultural Centre and includes a reworking of one of the classic songs of the insurgency, "Warszawskie Dzieci" ("Children of Warsaw"). In April 2015, Laibach launched an Indiegogo fundraising campaign to augment costs of a tour in the United States which started in May 2015. On 11 June 2015, Laibach announced that they would be performing a show in Pyongyang, North Korea in August 2015. The announcement and the concert saw large attention of the Western media, which described Laibach's upcoming performance as the first performance of a Western rock band in North Korea, although this was later revealed to be a misinformation. The concerts were the subject of the documentary film Liberation Day by Morten Traavik and Uģis Olte, which premiered in 2016. In July 2017, Laibach released the album Also Sprach Zarathustra. The songs on the album were originally composed for a theatrical production of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, based on Friedrich Nietzsche's novel of the same name. On 12 June 2018, Laibach marked the historic summit in Singapore between President of the United States Donald Trump and the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong un, by sharing a track Arirang dedicated to the Korean reunification process. Laibach was scheduled to perform in Kyiv on March 31, 2023. However, the band's description of the Russo Ukrainian War as a proxy war angered many Ukrainians and the concert was canceled.

Alamut is a symphonic work by Laibach composed by Luka Jamnik, Nima A. Rowshan and Idin Samimi Mofakham, and based on a traditional Persian story of Hasan i Sabah and the eponymous novel by Slovenian author Vladimir Bartol. "This is a very difficult project because most of it is based on diplomacy," said Laibach's Ivan Novak. "We have said that art is diplomacy that demands fanaticism, and this is exactly what we are doing. Diplomacy is becoming an important part of our projects nowadays, we live in very complex times". Alamut is the subject of a documentary by Sašo Podgoršek, who made the 2006 Laibach tour film Divided States Of America. "Opus Dei" retained some of the original song's English lyrics, but was delivered in a musical style that left the meaning of the lyrics open to interpretation. Whereas the original is a feel good pop anthem, Laibach's interpretation twists the melody into a triumphant military march. With the exception of the promotional video, the refrain is at one point translated into German, giving an example of the sensitivity of lyrics to their context. The Opus Dei album also features a cover of Queen's "One Vision" with lyrics translated into German under the title '"Geburt einer Nation" ("Birth of a Nation"), revealing the ambiguity of lines like "One race one hope / One real decision". On NATO, Laibach also memorably re worked Europe's glam metal anthem "The Final Countdown" as a bombastic disco epic. Other notable covers include Let It Be, reinterpretation of the eponymous Beatles album. The ensuing maxi single Sympathy for the Devil deconstructs the Rolling Stones song of the same name with seven different interpretations. Laibach not only references modern artists through reinterpretation, but also samples or reinvents older musical pieces. For example, their song "Anglia" is based on the national anthem of the United Kingdom, God Save the Queen, released on Volk, a collection of Laibach's versions of several national anthems. On this album they also included an anthem for their NSK State in Time, based on their song "The Great Seal" from Opus Dei. They have also toured with an audio visual performance centered on Johann Sebastian Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge. Since this work has no specifications of acquired instruments and is furthermore based on mathematical principles, Laibach has argued that the music can be seen as proto techno. Therefore, the band found Die Kunst der Fuge to be ideal for an interpretation using computers and software. In 2009, Laibach reworked Richard Wagner's Overture to Tannhäuser, Siegfried Idyll and The Ride Of The Valkyries in collaboration with the RTV Slovenia Symphonic Orchestra, conducted by Izidor Leitinger. Laibach's version is titled "VolksWagner". In addition to cover songs, Laibach has remixed songs by other bands. These include two songs by the Florida death metal band Morbid Angel that appear on the Morbid Angel EP Laibach Re mixes.

Some early material by Laibach and later neoclassical releases by the band, such as the album Macbeth, were influential on certain artists within the martial industrial music genre.

Laibach is often cited as an influence for the popular German Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein. The parallel is regularly made between the bands regarding their aesthetics and deep male vocals both groups share and with their respective backgrounds of originating from former socialist countries. When asked about the topic in an interview, the guitar player of Rammstein, Richard Kruspe, claimed Rammstein to have a more emotional approach instead of the more "intellectual" style of Laibach. In the same interview the keyboard player of Rammstein Christian Lorenz drew a parallel between the deep voices of Till Lindemann and Milan Fras but considered this to be the only similarity between the two music groups. The documentary film Liberation Day ends with a notice stating that a member of a certain industrial metal band was supposed to be interviewed for the film about the influence Laibach had on their earlier work, but it had to be removed due to the prospect of arrest or a fine from the district court of Berlin towards the makers of the film. This, and the early promotional material for the film suggest that it was Paul Landers who was to appear in the film, thus to some extent confirming the connection between these two music groups. When members of Laibach were asked by an interviewer about Rammstein "stealing" from them, they responded: "Laibach does not believe in originality Therefore, Rammstein could not 'steal' much from us. They simply let themselves get inspired by our work, which is absolutely a legitimate process. We are glad that they made it. In a way, they have proven once again that a good 'copy' can make more money on the market than the 'original'. Anyhow, today we share the territory: Rammstein seem to be a kind of Laibach for adolescents and Laibach are Rammstein for grown ups." Laibach would later provide a remix for the Rammstein single "Ohne dich".

In 1989, on his second studio album Hoćemo gusle (We Want Gusle), Yugoslav alternative rock musician Rambo Amadeus recorded a Laibach parody song "Samit u burekdžinici Laibach" ("Summit in the burek bakery Laibach"), featuring the song lyrics from the poems "Santa Maria della Salute" ("Saint Mary of Health") by Laza Kostić and "Ne, nemoj mi prići" ("No, Do Not Come Near Me") by Desanka Maksimović and the chorus from the turbo folk singer Šaban Šaulić song "Čaše lomim, ruke mi krvave" ("I Break the Glasses, My Hands Are Bleeding"). A promotional video was also recorded for the track, parodying Laibach videos and aesthetics. Von Bach, a fictional supervillain modeled after Milan Fras, appears in the DC Comics graphic novel Kingdom Come, by Alex Ross and Mark Waid. In it, he appears dressed in Laibach style uniform and displays the group's cross tattooed on his chest. He is described as follows: "German speaking superhuman and would be dictator is the example of the Hitleresque villain that had so much symbolic importance in the Golden Age of comic books. The blocky cross on his chest is evocative of the kind of bold symbols used by fascists. Von Bach has the words 'Liebe' (love) and 'Hass' (hate) tattooed on his arms and, in fact, his entire body has been covered with one large tattoo of that dark color that most tattoos become, with his natural flesh color only coming through in the designs on his body". On the NSK State website, the band states they have "been paid with uncommon honour" by this. In 1999, a tribute album to Laibach titled Schlecht und Ironisch – Laibach Tribut was released. Laibach's version of the Juno Reactor song "God Is God" (which was inspired by Laibach's "Opus Dei", itself a cover of Opus's song "Live Is Life") from the album Jesus Christ Superstars appears on the second soundtrack disc for the computer game Command & Conquer: Red Alert, which was released only in the German release of the Special Edition pack, and on the album "The Blair Witch Project: Josh's Blair Witch Mix". Canadian industrial doom metal band Zaraza released a tribute EP called Montrealska Akropola – A Tribute to Laibach in 2004. The official soundtrack for the crowd funded film Iron Sky was written by Laibach and released as an album. Laibach song "B Mashina" was used in one of the trailers for the film. Continuing with the theme Iron Sky: The Coming Race will also have its music done by Laibach, and has used their song "Koran" in two of its trailers. In July 2015, the TV show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver talks about Laibach's plan to play at National Liberation Day in North Korea.

. Foreword by Slavoj Žižek.