Laibach

Laibach is a Slovenian band, formed on 1 June 1980 in Trbovlje, Slovenia, then part of Yugoslavia. Its name is the German name for Ljubljana. The band grew out of Salto Mortale, a group the founding member Dejan Knez had formed in 1978, and its music is usually described as industrial, avant-garde and experimental.

From the beginning Laibach worked with military and totalitarian imagery, and that brought it into conflict with the authorities. Its first singer, Tomaž Hostnik, left after a concert in 1982. A television appearance on TV tednik in 1983 caused a public storm, the authorities banned the name Laibach that year, and the ban was only lifted on 4 April 1985. In 1984 Laibach was one of the co-founders of the art collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK), together with the painters' group IRWIN and others, and it has remained the collective's musical wing.

The early sound was harsh, with heavy rhythms and loud vocals, but from the mid-1980s the band began to layer in pop and classical samples. The debut studio album Laibach came out in 1985, and Opus Dei followed in 1987 with "Life Is Life", a cover of Opus's "Live Is Life" that became a commercial success, and "Geburt einer Nation", a German version of Queen's "One Vision". Turning a light song into something solemn and martial became their trademark: Let It Be (1988) reworked the Beatles, with "Across the Universe" featuring Anja Rupel, and Sympathy for the Devil (1989) the Rolling Stones.

Kapital (1992), NATO (1994), Jesus Christ Superstars (1996) and WAT (2003), which included "Tanz mit Laibach", carried the band through the 1990s and beyond. Dejan Knez left in 2003, and Ivan "Jani" Novak, long the band's spokesman, has led it since. Its key members also include the singer Milan Fras and Ervin Markošek on drums, keyboards and electronics.

Volk followed in 2006 and Spectre in 2014. Laibach wrote the music for the science fiction comedy Iron Sky, released as a soundtrack in 2012, and in August 2015 played two concerts in Pyongyang, North Korea, a journey shown in the documentary Liberation Day. Also Sprach Zarathustra (2017) and The Sound of Music (2018) followed, and in 2022 the band premiered the symphonic work Alamut.