Laibach has been flirting with totalitarian symbols, and confusing audiences, for decades. Their new album of \u201cSound of Music\u201d covers is puzzling, too.<\/b>
\nLJUBLJANA, Slovenia \u2014 On a recent afternoon, Ivan Novak, a member of the Slovenian rock group Laibach, went for a walk in the hills overlooking the country\u2019s capital, Ljubljana. In between stops to pet passing dogs, he explained what it was like when Laibach became the first Western band to perform in North Korea.
In 2015, the group made headlines around the world \u2014 many bemused \u2014 when they played a show in the insular, communist country that consisted mostly of over-the-top covers from \u201cThe Sound of Music.\u201d
An album of the same name featuring some of those songs \u2014 including \u201cMaria,\u201d reworked to ask, \u201cHow do you solve a problem like Korea?\u201d \u2014 has just been released as a final document of the trip.
The technical setup for the Pyongyang show, held in a theater next to the headquarters of North Korea\u2019s secret police, left a little to be desired, Novak said.
\u201cThere was one plug for everything,\u201d he said. Its cord had to be stuck down with tape so people didn\u2019t trip over it.
North Korea\u2019s censors turned up during rehearsal to listen and demand changes, he added. \u201cThey kept telling us the songs had to be quicker: \u2018Happy tune! Happy tune!\u2019 \u201d
Officials also asked if Laibach\u2019s lead singer, Milan Fras, could be dropped from the show, Nokav said, partly because his voice \u2014 a deep growl \u2014 sounded uncannily like Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current ruler Kim Jong-un, singing and might disturb the audience. (After negotiation, Fras ended up performing.)
\u201cWe didn\u2019t mind,\u201d Novak said of the censorship. \u201cThey\u2019re very sensitive about music. They want it to always be nice, and upbeat.\u201d
Novak continued to recount memories from the tour, making the whole process of playing North Korea sound so enjoyable and interesting that it didn\u2019t sound as if the band had been in one of the world\u2019s most repressive nations.
\u201cOf course it\u2019s a totalitarian country,\u201d Novak said, with a shrug. \u201cBut which country is not totalitarian nowadays?\u201d
Laibach was a surprising choice for North Korea. Since forming in 1980 in Trbovlje, a mining town, when the country was part of Yugoslavia, they have been one of Europe\u2019s most provocative bands. They started out playing bombastic industrial music, appearing on stage in old army uniforms and making heavy use of symbols and poses that suggested fascism or extreme nationalism.
Laibach is the German name for Ljubljana, used by occupying German forces and collaborators in World War II, and some in 1980s Yugoslavia thought the band were Nazi apologists or right-wing extremists. The authorities banned them from performing under that name.
\u201cIn the time of socialism, they almost provoked a revolution,\u201d said Marina Grzinic, a Slovenian philosopher who has written about Laibach since the 1980s. \u201cThey wanted to force us to think about our history,\u201d she added. \u201cIt was necessary to be shocking, to shake everything up, to force people to think.\u201d
Alexei Monroe, an academic who has also written extensively about the group, said, \u201cThey wanted to explore the relationship between art and totalitarianism.\u201d Laibach used totalitarian symbols, taking them to absurd extremes as a way of mirroring society and showing where it might be headed, he said.
The band has made albums exploring many different kinds of power, Monroe added, exercised by everything from nations to corporations, often changing their musical style each time. (They have covered \u201c Jesus Christ Superstar \u201d as well as a selection of national anthems .)
It wasn\u2019t just in Yugoslavia that Laibach caused confusion. They were equally misunderstood when they first went to the United States. A 1988 review in The Times described the band as \u201ceither an ugly phenomenon or a didactic joke \u2014 and a loud one either way.\u201d (The same review highlighted one song\u2019s lyrics \u2014 \u201cLet\u2019s make the United States of America first again\u201d \u2014 which now seems 30 years ahead of its time.)
Laibach\u2019s refusal to explain themselves fueled the misunderstandings. When asked in the 1980s by the German newspaper Die Zeit if they were Nazis, for instance, the band replied in a written statement, \u201cWe are Nazis as much as Hitler was an artist.\u201d
They have largely left the explaining to others, such as academics like Monroe and Grzinic. Slavoj Zizek, the Slovenian left-wing philosopher, once wrote, \u201cLaibach does not function as an answer, but as a question.\u201d
Monroe agreed with this. In Slovenia, the band\u2019s politics are widely seen as far left, he said. But Laibach wants to provoke and perplex. \u201cIf there were no uncertainty, it wouldn\u2019t be Laibach anymore,\u201d he said.
\u201cWhy should I explain?\u201d said Novak, 60, who officially does \u201cthe lights\u201d for the band\u2019s shows, but also shapes its music and artistic choices, when asked to talk about Laibach\u2019s motivations. \u201cIf you are a poet, you don\u2019t talk about your poems. You don\u2019t say, \u2018When I wrote \u201cwater,\u201d I actually meant something completely different.\u2019 \u201d
\u201cEspecially if you write modern poems,\u201d he added. \u201cThose are complicated.\u201d
The band has recently gained fans in the alt-right who like their outfits and pomposity, Novak said. He laughed at the idea, but refused to denounce it. \u201cWe simply don\u2019t belong to anyone,\u201d he said.
Novak said the band wanted to cover \u201cThe Sound of Music\u201d long before they visited North Korea. Learning that North Koreans love the movie gave them an excuse. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the few American films they\u2019re allowed to watch. They learn English with it, apparently,\u201d he said. It was a way of communicating across the cultural and musical divide, he added.
He denied there was any provocation behind the choice. \u201cClimb Every Mountain,\u201d for instance, was not intended as a call for the North Korean people to rise up, he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a purely sexual song,\u201d he added, before going into a long explanation of the Freudian aspects of \u201cThe Sound of Music.\u201d
\u201cWhat\u2019s the point in going to North Korea to destroy the system that is going to change by itself anyway, slowly?\u201d Nokav said. \u201cThey live a life they believe is the best possible life, most of them.\u201d
If he wanted to provoke anyone with the trip, it was Westerners who are willing to believe anything about North Korea, he added.
A few hours after the walk, Novak went to a \u201cBalkan sushi\u201d restaurant in the middle of Ljubljana for dinner. \u201cIt\u2019s raw meat, basically,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m a vegetarian, but here I eat meat.\u201d
Novak was joined by other members of the band, including Fras, who spoke in a high-pitched voice, completely different from the rumbling bass of his singing style, and Boris Benko, a singer who also took part in the North Korean trip.
\u201cI thought that by going we\u2019d learn something about North Korea,\u201d Benko said. \u201cBut actually when you go there, you realize you\u2019ll never know anything. Because you\u2019re never sure. Is this real what we\u2019re seeing? Is this staged? You\u2019re always questioning.\u201d
Isn\u2019t that a lot like watching, or meeting, Laibach? Benko laughed, and avoided answering the question.<\/p>\n