Photo credit: Nika H. Praper & Ludvik Lowres
Today Laibach shares the video for the title track from their forthcoming album, their most pop outing to date. The new album finds Laibach simultaneously celebrating and playfully critiquing our present era of warped reality and gaudy AI copycatting with a collection of undeniably catchy pop that revels in hyper-driven post-modernity: MUSICK is intensely pop, but it’s also intensely Laibach.
Watch the video for “Musick” HERE.
The video was filmed in the Latvian Academy of Sciences, a hyperreal totem of Socialist Classicism and depicts Laibach’s frontman kept alive by the very thing that sickens him: MUSICK. The video is directed by Morten Traavik, who arranged for the band to travel to North Korea and documented it in the film Liberation Day (2016) and directed their 2014 video for “The Whistleblowers,” who explains, “In line with Laibach´s general artistic and philosophical values, we´re aiming for the perfect union of George Orwell and Lady Gaga.”
Co-produced by Richard X (whose credits include Sugababes, Goldfrapp, and New Order), with guest vocals by Ghanaian singer Wiyaala, “Musick” speaks of oversaturation, being sick of music at a time where there is so much of it that we can barely engage. The track also speaks to another kind of sickness: a pathological devotion to music – “an obsession, a kind of drug” – which continues to drive Laibach in this era of oversaturation.
The new album is released on vinyl, CD and digitally on May 1, 2026 on Mute.
The group took a maximalist approach while making the album in their Ljubljana studio. Surrounding themselves with every music-making artefact they could find - from analogue synths to toys to computers stuffed full with sound apps - they invited collaborators from Slovenia and beyond.
Guests on the album each bring new aspects to the Laibach machine and include electro pop producer Richard X, Senidah, one of the region's biggest pop stars, Ghanaian artist Wiyaala, the “Lioness of Africa,” who they first saw in an underground club in Ljubljana, long-time collaborator Donna Marina Mårtensson, Manca Trampuš, the frontwoman of the Slovenian indie band Koala Voice and Gregor Strasbergar from the band MRFY, one of the most compelling alternative acts in Slovenia.
During the recording, Laibach immersed themselves in a broad spectrum of contemporary music production, from K‑pop and J‑pop to ’90s Eurodance. They explain, “The creative process within the group usually doesn’t begin with the question ‘what genre?’, but rather with ‘what necessity?’ Sometimes it is a political fact, at other times an aesthetic experiment, and at others simply the desire to offer the algorithm something it cannot digest.
So, if today someone thinks we are K-pop newcomers of the year, then we have clearly understood the spirit of the times - although, of course, we are not K-pop (but L-pop).
The tracks on the forthcoming album are formally original, as they emerge from our need to reflect the world. But in reality, the world itself is already a collage of clichés, choruses, and beats. We simply appropriate them and reorganise them.”
As in their previous work, 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. Each track adheres to familiar tropes, forms and themes – but this compliance holds the potential for subversion. “The entire album engages directly with this tension,” says Laibach. “The tracks are designed to bypass algorithmic detection, to implant doubt - the most essential virtue of thought - and to reinstate the disruptive, playful folly of the court jester in a system that demands seamless predictability.”
Laibach will embark on the first leg of their MUSICK tour on May 18 in Graz, before travelling through Europe in the summer. The band will host a press conference in Ljubljana on April 16 and, ahead of their tour, will perform a very special “dress rehearsal” in Trbovlje on May 14. For tickets and further tour announcements, visit the band's live page.
LAIBACH – LIVE
5/18/2026 – Graz (AT) Orpheum
5/19/2026 – Schorndorf (DE), Manufaktur
5/20/2026 – Cologne (DE), Essigfabrik
5/22/2026 – Aarhus (DK), VoxHall
5/23/2026. – Gothenburg (SE), Filmstudion
5/24/2026 – Stockholm (SE), Nya Circus
5/26/2026 – Helsinki (FI), Savoy Theatre
5/27/2026 – Tallinn (EE), Kultuurikeskus
5/28/2026 – Riga (LV), Spelet Concert Hall
5/29/2026 – Vilnius (LT), Loftas
5/30/2026 – Warsaw (PL), Progresja
5/31/2026 – Prague (CZ), Palac Akropolis
6/2/2026 – Leipzig (DE), Täubchenthal
6/3/2026 – Munich (DE), Muffathalle
6/4/2026 - Klagenfurt (AT), Burghof
6/27/2026 – Maribor (SI), Festival Lent
7/2/2026 - Vinkuran/Medulin Riviera (HR), Cave Romane
7/24/2026 – Castle (SI), Kolpa Music Festival
9/25/2026 – Ljubljana (SI), Kino Šiška
9/26/2026 - Ljubljana (SI), Kino Šiška
9/29/2026 - London (UK), Islington Assembly Hall
9/30/2026 - Manchester (UK), Ritz
10/1/2026 – Southampton (UK), 1865
10/2/2026 - Canterbury (UK), The Gulbenkian
10/4/2026 - Gent (BE). Democrazy
10/6/2026 - Bochum (DE), Zeche
10/7/2026 - Nijmegen (NL), Doornroosje
10/8/2026 - Hamburg (DE), Große Freiheit 36
10/9/2026 - Oslo (NO), Rockefeller Music Hall
10/11/2026 - Copenhagen (DK), Bremen Teater
10/13/2026 - Berlin (DE), Huxleys Neue Welt
10/14/2026 - Dresden (DE), Reithalle
10/15/2026 - Brno (CZ), Fleda
10/16/2026 – Zagreb (HR), Boogaloo
Tickets and further information: https://www.laibach.org/future-events/
MUSICK album art:
EMAIL me at AlexLaurence @ AOL (dot) com "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, inf...
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