Laibach - WAT
Laibach has been in existence for more than twenty years, a quasi-political art collective which has persisted in releasing records which both confound and inflame the political authority of their Slovenian homeland. In 1992, they formed the Neue Slowenische Kunst -- a "State in Time" -- and began to issue their own passports as well as staging "diplomatic" events and establishing consulates in foreign countries. Their intent has always been to make art that turns the masses away from consumerism, Christianity, and the mindless adherence to the entertainment industry. Their "crypto-totalitarianism" -- a term used by the New York Times to describe them -- is propagated to the West by their music.
The first formal Laibach record since 1996's Jesus Christ Superstars, WAT finds them returning to the more electronic based arrangements of earlier records. The massive choral orchestration is still existent, filling tracks like "B Mashina," "Du Bist Unser," and "Now You Will Pay." Milan Fras' profoundly basso voice still anchors their sound, a rumbling thunder which is both guttural and hypnotic. Vaguely industrial (in what slim sense "industrial" has for music any longer), Laibach's sound is a strange mix of choral hymn, military drill team soundtrack, and the black belch of smoke from proto-industrialized machinery. Singing in either German or English, they move easily from the martial pomp and circumstance beat of "Achtung!" to the subterranean intonation and machinery whisper of "Ende" to the tongue in cheek, four on the floor club stylings of "Tanz Mit Laibach." (If my handy translator pal is correct, the lyrics go: "We dance with totalitarianism, we dance with democracy, we dance with fascism, and we dance with anarchy.") And, as a seductive "welcome to the machinery of the new state" love song, "Hell:Symmetry" is not only club-friendly, but it could just as easily become the theme song for a slick underground S & M boutique/dungeon chain.
But what they really do better than anyone else is the nationalistic hymn -- the shake off your shackles and claim your birthright sort of anthem. This time it is "B Mashina," a spoken word introduction based on text by Tomi Meglic that, if I was going to found my own nation state, I would want as my national anthem.
I'm just a naive white boy from the "land of plenty and of ammunition" who has enough trouble getting his local politics straightened out, and a band who is gagged by their state from even displaying their name on their records for the first decade of their existence is an organization whom engenders respect. It saddens me that the best we can do is give them course to write songs like "Satanic Versus." "Express yourself as the living nation / The first, the second, the third world domination / Impress with stars and stripes forever / Conspiracy of terror and salvation."
The title of the record is an acronym meant as a symbol of the final rebellion and as a dig at our acronym-centric culture. WAT. "We have no answers to your questions / Yet we can question your demands / We don't intend to save your souls ... We are time." In the end, the nations will be gone and those who have shaken off the shackles of the military/industrial complex and liberated themselves from the death cycle of endless consumerism will be ready to ride the "dream machines into the sky."
As Laibach warns us in the beginning, "Let them sleep who do not know; the final day is here." WAT is a manifesto for us to rise to our evolutionary possibilities. "We raise our hands and bodies to the peak and to the universe. Towards the stars we go." Art and the inherent expressions of being human can never be destroyed. Laibach's "State in Time" is one of complete freedom, free of all self and state forged manacles. Entrance to the NSK is easy; it is getting out of your own totalitarian state which is hard. You need WAT to remind you of the revolutionary fervor of which you are capable.
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