Borghesia

Borghesia is an electronic and rock band founded in Ljubljana in 1982, playing gothic rock, minimal wave and EBM, electronic body music. It grew out of the alternative theatre group FV-112/15, and its founders were Aldo Ivančič on drums and electronics and Dario Seraval on vocals and electronics, both from Pula; other members of the theatre joined the same year.

Until the end of the 1980s Borghesia worked as a multimedia group, with the visuals as an equal part of the show. Neven Korda led the stage design and video until 1989, with Zemira Alajbegović and Goran Devide, who died in Maribor in 1988. Their staged performances included Lustmörder (SC Zagreb, 1984), Young Prisoners (Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana, 1984), Ogolelo mesto (1985) and Bodočniki (1986), and videos such as Tako mladi (1984) and Ogolelo mesto (1985).

The debut album Borghesia appeared in 1983, followed by Clones (1984), Ljubav je hladnija od smrti (1985) and the EP Their Laws, Our Lives (1986). Signing to the Belgian label Play It Again Sam took them into the European EBM scene: No Hope, No Fear (1987), Escorts and Models (1988), Surveillance and Punishment and Resistance (1989), the latter also released by Jugoton, Message (1990) and Dreamers in Colour (1992). The PIAS records were licensed to Wax Trax in North America, and the band appeared on the compilations This Is Electronic Body Music (1988) and Trans Slovenia Express (Mute, 1994).

Borghesia toured Europe, mainly between 1988 and 1991, and were reviewed by NME, Melody Maker and Zillo; a show in Gothenburg in October 1988 went out on Swedish national radio. Beside Laibach, they are described as the main representative of Slovenian alternative music abroad. In the 1990s Ivančič led the band with singer Bruno Subiotto, and Pro Choice (1995) came before the band stopped.

Borghesia returned in 2009 with the double CD 20th Century – Selected Works, and Ivančič and Seraval have since released And Man Created God (Metropolis Records, 2014), the live Better Live Than Dead (2016), Proti kapitulaciji (2018) and Un Chant d'Amour (2021), playing live with Irena Tomažin, Jelena Rusjan and Andrej Mazi.