Laibach formed in 1980 in the then-Yugoslavian industrial town Trbovlje in Slovenia. Founded in the year that the country’s founding father Tito died, the band rose to fame to become one of the most internationally acclaimed bands to have come out of the former Communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe, and went on to become one of the first bands to perform in North Korea, documented by the film Liberation Day (2016)

In 2019 they released a Laibachian interpretation of The Sound of Music, conceived during their trip to North Korea and in 2020 celebrated four decades with Laibach Revisited. An album of music from the acclaimed theatrical production Wir sind das Volk (ein Musical aus Deutschland) based on the writings of Heiner Müller (1929-1995) followed in 2022 and the band announced recently that diplomatic negotiations are underway for a performance in Tehran of Alamut, an original symphonic work composed in collaboration with Iranian composers and performers. Their Love is Still Alive EP in 2023 has been followed by several track releases, including ‘The Engine of Survival’ and their cover of Leonard Cohen’s pre-apocalyptic track, ‘The Future’.

Laibach’s latest album, MUSICK is both a celebration and playful critique of our present era of warped reality and gaudy AI copycatting; a collection of undeniably catchy pop that revels in hyper-driven post-modernity.

MUSICK sees Laibach take the tools of authoritarianism into their own hands. Their use of algorithmic tricks, AI systems and pop tropes are 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.