Popaganda

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THE Slovenian industrial provocateurs who once played Pyongyang have made a pop album, but it’s still the most sinister thing in the shops. Laibach, the art collective who have spent four decades in the uniform of a regime that doesn’t exist, have explained why your Spotify is a dictatorship.

Their new album, MUSICK, reads as a portmanteau of music sickness, or being “sick of music,” and also evokes Muzak and magick, as coined by occultist Aleister Crowley. “We are not sick of musick,” the group, who prefer to answer questions in the Laibach hive mind, told the Morning Star. “Music itself has become sick.”

The band’s diagnosis is that most music “suffers from overproduction,” facilitated by streaming services, and now reaches us as “emotional wallpaper,” generated for shopping, sleeping, exercising and self-improvement.

MUSICK, and its companion piece MUSICK: ENCORE, is not only a critique of this process but “music that seduces,” they say. The album’s sound falls somewhere in-between the Europop of Aqua’s Barbie Girl (you can really imagine singer Milan Fras belting out its “come on Barbie, let’s go party” chorus in his deep bass) and the hyperpop of SOPHIE or Charli XCX.

Is MUSICK their poppiest record yet? Probably, though Laibach insist they have “always been a pop group — even if we have not always looked or sounded like one.” Which is a bit like a Dalek saying it has always been a warm and approachable presence at children’s parties.

“Pop music is an extraordinarily efficient ideological machine,” they say. “It compresses desire, obedience, repetition and identification into three or four minutes. It gives the listener the illusion of individual choice while millions of other individuals are making exactly the same choice at exactly the same moment.

“In this respect, pop and totalitarian spectacle fit together and complement one another perfectly. A hook is also a command.

“Industrial music traditionally exposed the machinery behind modern society. Contemporary pop is that machinery — with better lighting, smoother interfaces and a more attractive subscription model.”

It’s pop-aganda, then, if you will. Helping them sharpen these so-called hooks is Richard X, the producer behind Sugababes, Goldfrapp and Kelis. He co-produced Allgorhythm, the first single from the album featuring Ghanaian singer Wiyaala, which draws from the Pet Shop Boys, Johann Pachelbel’s Canon and Culture Beat’s Rhythm Is a Dancer.

The tune was considered catchy enough to be considered as Slovenia’s Eurovision entry, until the country withdrew from the contest after Israel was allowed to compete. Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Iceland also joined Slovenia in boycotting the competition over Israel’s participation.

Laibach back the decision, saying: “Eurovision insists that it is an apolitical event while organising itself entirely around nations, flags, national broadcasters and competitive state representation. 

“Under such conditions, it is impossible to claim that an artist represents a country only when this is convenient, but becomes a completely private individual when the actions of that country are questioned.

“This does not mean that artists should be personally persecuted, censored or held individually responsible for the actions of their government. Cultural workers are often among the most articulate critics of state violence. But Eurovision is not an independent artists’ festival. It is an institutional spectacle in which countries represent themselves through artists.

“If Russia could be excluded following its invasion of Ukraine, then the same principles must be applied consistently. Otherwise, ‘apolitical’ simply means politically selective. In the age of genocide broadcast live on mobile phones, neutrality is no longer neutral. It is choreography.”

The companion release, MUSICK: ENCORE, brings six extra pieces, a set of remixes, and a guest list that is an excellent introduction to Slovenia’s pop scene: Kaja Skrbinsek of Liamere, Marina Martensson, Joker Out’s Bojan Cvjeticanin, Gregor Strasbergar of MRFY, Manca Trampus of Koala Voice and Senidah.

Yet its highlight is the inclusion of Laibach’s standalone single, Yom Kippur, released last October to commemorate the Gaza peace plan, which has since been violated.

The peace anthem is a sombre masterstroke that features a Palestinian Children’s Choir, who sing “We don’t want war and killing” and “Where is humanity?” in Arabic. It’s a reminder that behind the jackboots and heavy irony is Laibach’s striking ability to make incisive and vital political statements.

“It is the moral wound inside the album,” Laibach said. “The song was conceived as a secular requiem and a demand for remembrance, repentance and responsibility. It is dedicated to the innocent victims of war, especially the tens of thousandsof children killed or maimed in the genocide in Gaza.

“The title refers to the Day of Atonement, not as an accusation against a religion or a people, but as a universal metaphor for individual and collective guilt — and for the responsibility that states and societies continually refuse to recognise.

“Placing it beside Eurodance, hyperpop and the synthetic pleasures of MUSICK is therefore deliberate. Entertainment and catastrophe do not occupy separate worlds. They appear on the same screen and pass through the same algorithm: a dance track, an advertisement, an image of a dead child, another dance track.”

Finally, it would be remiss not to mention the elephant in the room: Donald Trump. The US president’s many shenanigans, not to mention his spat with the Pope and controversial AI-generated image of himself as Christ posted earlier this year, have arguably out-Laibached Laibach. But the band are withering, conceding that the stunt was “very Laibach, but without the analytical discipline,” and “a bit too obvious.”

They add: “Trump is difficult to caricature because he has eliminated the distance between caricature and political reality. Satire traditionally exaggerates the behaviour of power until its obscenity becomes visible. Trump begins with the exaggeration and then governs through it.

“Does he do it better? He does it with considerably greater resources and more dangerous consequences.”

Having played North Korea, the band is now short of places that will have them. Tehran, where they hope one day to perform their previous album Alamut with the Tehran Symphony Orchestra, is off the table during wartime, though the plan is “postponed, not abandoned,” and they say Kiev “remains unresolved.”

They also confess that the White House “would be an excellent location, though after North Korea they rate their chances of getting into the US as “extremely limited.” One imagines the ESTA form is going to be a fun read.

The point, they insist, isn’t to “go where others cannot go” or about collecting trophy venues. It’s to go “where the presence of music produces a relevant question.” Canterbury here they come!

Laibach tour Britain from September 29 to October 4. For dates, venues and tickets see: laibach.org.

MUSICK and MUSICK: ENCORE are released by Mute Records, and available to download on bandcamp.

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