Laibach

Example Album: S/T LP

Location: Yugoslavia, now Slovenia

Years Active: 1980-present

Style: Martial industrial, metal percussion

    Laibach are an industrial and avant-garde music group formed in the mining town of Trbovlje, Yugoslavia. Early on they played in a martial industrial style, before eventually going into the forays of techno, pop, and rock music, though always with a political and avant-garde approach in their presentation, aesthetic, and performance. Laibach is a political statement and critique of fascism, Marxism-Leninism, and liberalism, though always cloaked in an esoteric mystique. They've accrued plenty of controversy for their aesthetic and presentation, evocative of militarism and fascism. In their home country of Yugoslavia at the time, they were banned and censored.

    The focus of this entry is their first S/T LP, released in 1985. Throughout the entire record you can hear some particularly chilling use of metal percussion, both performed and sampled/sequenced, as well as other machine and industrial noises. This album to me sounds like a more militaristic Test Dept., and indeed, both Laibach and Test Dept. were in close correspondence and had mutual respect for each other during the 80's. In the Test Dept. book "Total State Machine," it was said that "Test Dept. turned art into politics, and Laibach turned politics into art."

    As far as metal percussion and other Laibach material is concerned, their second album Nova Akropola has some good stuff. Though I am admittedly less familiar with their later output. In 2023 Laibach released their new album Sketches of the Red Districts, which features the track LEPO - KRASNO. This track is heavily based around scrap metal percussion and industrial rhythms, a return to form for the band.

    Laibach are the first and only Western band to play a concert in North Korea.