Tuesday 20 October 2009

Guest Review - LAIBACH


I read a few reviews on your website and I thought I can do that as well even if I am just a German Girl. Well, hardly a girl anymore and maybe not such an expert as you all. So therefore I would like to ask you not to be so strict with me, if I have some mistakes in my spelling or writing etc…..

Some reviews inspired me to expand my music taste and I would like to introduce to you one of the most bizarre Slovenian avant-garde music group. Maybe you like it or you hate it. I have to say I hated them the first time I listened to their songs as they sounded a bit disturbed, but then I started to listen to their lyrics and read about the band history. Therefore

some important details about Laibach before listening to them;

The current band members:

  • Milan Fras - vocals
  • Ivan Novak - lights and projection
  • Mina Špiler or Boris Benko or Jadranka Juras - vocals, synthesizer
  • Janez Gabrič - drums
  • Luka Jamnik - synthesizer
  • Primož Hladnik - (member of Slovenian group Silence) synthesizer
  • Eva Breznikar - (member of Slovenian group Make Up 2) vocals, percussion
  • Nataša Regovec - (former member of Slovenian pop group Make Up 2) vocals, percussion
  • Damjan Bizilj - synthesizer

Music and influence :

Some early Laibach albums were pure industrial, with hard industrial percussions, heavy rhythms, and roaring vocals. Later in the mid-80s, the Laibach sound became more richly layered with samples from classical music including from Gustav Holst’s The Planets. The band began their tradition of cover songs in 1987 with the album Opus Dei, where their sound was changed again.

Some early material by Laibach and later neoclassical releases by the band — such as 1990's Macbeth release — were influential on certain artists within the martial music genre.

Also you can find a Wagnerian influence as you might hear in some of their songs such us "Sympathy for the Devil (Time for a Change)".

If you start thinking now they are extreme right wing, because they took some music material of Richard Wagner, you are on the wrong track.

They do not talk so much about themselves or their political attitude, you have to find out and analyse for yourself what you think what they are! One thing is sure, they are neither right nor left – as Laibach said in an interview:

"We are fascists as much as Hitler was a painter" .

It is up to you to decide for yourself what they actually are. You can discuss it with your friends having a bottle of red wine or cider, but you will have a different conservation with cider as with red wine- my experience.

Their most famous or popular song was “Life is Life” in German “Leben heißt Leben” covered from a lot of “ I would like to be famous and to be on Tele” people. These covers are all for beer tent packed with a lot of drunk people who cannot sit or stand straight anymore and if you say excuse me, could you please mind yourself here, they say “ Uh, can`t you see I am dancing” – and the next minute you see this fantastic dancer in the last corner getting rid off his beer having probably his last dance. Anyway do not like beer tents too many people and they start getting smelly after two hours sitting and drinking – no thanks.

So I think, that is enough information, if you really like them or you like to know more about them, then visit their official website

Here some song links (hopefully they work, otherwise you have to search for them yourself on youtube or not)

( this link could work or not, but to me it looks like not – well, have a try)

(last one and the most historical one of all as it was the song for „Der Mauerfall” West and East Germany 9.November 1989)

I like constructive critic, but I am not accepting nonsense comment by “anonymous” .

24 comments:

  1. Before either Craig or Andy starts sending in posts from Swedish chefs of Finish nursery school teachers, I'll spot it a mile off so don't. This one is legit.

    Oh and 'Sympathy of the Devil' is beyond words. Thanks for the post 'German Girl' it's certainly not dull.

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  2. "I read a few reviews on your website and I thought I can do that as well..."

    There's a testimony for the back cover when we turn this into a book. The way you describe the band, German Girl, I imagine them to make a bit of a racket, a bit like an untethered washing machine bouncing around the kitchen floor on a White Cotton wash.

    I dont like beer tents either, there's usually someone urinating into a glass or snoring away because he got out of bed too early. But singing with your mates is great fun, just look at the pleasure that the Gallagher brothers or bands like Pink Floyd seem to get from it. Life is Life sounds ideal for that or even for a communal sing song around the piano like we used to do before The, err, Moon Landings.

    Anyway, nice to have someone new post, the current lot are a bit boring. Well done.

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  3. Like all European music other than gypsies it's just not very good

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  4. They have bears in the hills in Slovenia.

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  5. Welcome, German Girl, that'll be four of us now reading this blog. And much better written than the rest of us can manage.

    I actually already have their version of Sympathy For The Devil, it was given away on a free Uncut CD of the most bizarre Rolling Stones covers ever. It made me scared.

    Why are most of the Industrial Metal bands from Germany? Is it something in their DNA?

    Anybody seen "The Wave"? Top film about how to start a fascist party in a school. I recommend it.

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  6. *ahem* over 100 unique visitors last week. Mainly down to Craig and his links.

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  7. This is for the anonymous with the.. ²untethered washing machine bouncing around the kitchen floor on a White Cotton wash."


    I think you are totally wrong about Pink Floyd.

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  8. Yes him and another 4 million people that bought that bloody dark side of the moon album.....they were all wrong about Pink Floyd.

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  9. No, I cant agree with that, Pink Floyd would be the 'Woollen' wash rather than 'White Cotton'. I think some of you people need to clean your ears out with a paper clip.

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  10. Actually, Pink Floyd have sold over 100 million albums worldwide - that probably 99,950,000 more than The Young Republic (and I might be being generous here). Can they all be wrong?

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  11. Hippies, I rest my case.

    And as for 100 Million people being wrong 'George Bush'

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  12. Dare I say, a very fascistic view on Pink Floyd.

    George Bush was in a two horse race where a choice had to be made. And he didn't actually get the most votes the first time around. Bush got 50,456,002 votes, Gore got 50,999,897 (so not quite 100 million for Bush, but close).

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  13. you shouldn't say that, as you clearly have no understanding of the concept or meaning of facism.

    As for the detail, it's scale that counts here. 50 million people could easily have been wrong. ie A LOT of people choosing something is no argument for it being a good idea.

    And so the pedants bring their dourness to bear.

    Sorry should have signed in PaulB

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  14. If you believe something, you're automatically precluded from believing in the opposite, which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of this belief.

    A quote of Terence Mckenna( you might think he is a Hippie)

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  15. God and Satan do not exist - you know that?!

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  16. It's only a belief and therefore fits the argument perfectly

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  17. Eh?

    Can we have some more pictures of the High Jump girl?

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  18. The word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Pink Floyd, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else – George Orwell, What is Fascism?. 1944

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  19. You mean George orwell1984?big brother?

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  20. Yes, the same George Orwell. Orwell said that 1984 was a book to illustrate the dangers of totalitarianism (from either the extreme left or right). And even he was confused by the true meaning of fascism.

    Actually, many believe that the novel was a satirical dig at the state of Britain in 1948 (see what he did there?).

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  21. How the heck did this all happen, bring back High Jump girl.

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