Laibach – Ljubljana - Zagreb - Beograd

Mythique. Une musique brut d'un LAIBACH originel qui n'existera plus jamais. Cette album c'est du pur rock industriel. C'est le grand père du Noise Rock. 25 ans que le l'écoute avec toujours autant de plaisir.

Most people will have some experience of early LAIBACH & will therefore know whether they'll like this album or not. They have captured their hard, often abrasive sound live, which seems to be the ideal platform for it. Fans will either already have this or will buy it, so this review is probably aimed more at those with little or no experience of their sound. "Intro" is just a short piece of music played before the performance. "Unsere Geschichte" is an old piece of (wartime) music with a female vocalist which wobbles unable to hold it's pitch & seems stark & discordant. "Rdeci Molk (Red Silence)" opens with piercing sustains of shrill sound before kicking into a fast, raw electronic thing, untamed by any connection with tune. "Siemens" searches around for shape, finding it in odd (and somehow conformist) combinations of ear-curling electronics, abstract bass & 'normal' drums through which worm other sounds, slowly, almost soporifically dragging itself along to t's conclusion. It's the second longest track here at 6'14". "Smrt Za Smrt (Death For Death)" starts off with ambient hiss & all manner of noises with sudden jags of guitar & electronics searching for form before it grows on a flat drum rhythm, reminicent of THROBBING GRISTLE around the time of "Heathen Earth" with shrill noises & gutteral voice over the top. "Drzava (The State)" begins with amp noise & taped horns before hammering into a fast, Punk-speed song with the horn loop adding an amount of tune to the otherwise linear song. "Zavedali So Se - Poparjen Je Odsel I (They have Been Aware - Scalded He Left I)" again reminds me of "Heathen Earth" in both the flat 'modern savage' drum pattern/sound, and in it's noisy but grim mood. "Delo In Disciplina (Work And Discipline)" has a dense, noisy, chaotic machine sound which patters, pulsates & churns along in strict time contrasted with it's less than clean, complex distorted sound. "Tito - Tito" follows immediately on the tail of the previous track with a fastish piece of Latin American dance music from a handful of decades ago, losing it's clean sound, becoming harsh & metallic by being played live. "Ostati Zvesti Nasi Preteklosti - Poparjen Je Odsel II (To Stay Faithful To Our Past - Scalded He Left II)" patters into dark, moody life, it's sound like a grim warning of inevitability & threat. The sounds, based on simple drum drone like a mistuned, misplayed violin with squeaking guitar added over the top while the vocalist speaks his words with straight-faced seriousness. "Tovarna C19 (Factory C19)" pumps it's way out of the speakers, again simple enough drums over which grey/black/brown washes of noise & distortion mount upon one another in a complex, presumably improv structure. "STT (Mchine Factory Trbovlje)" is a very brief work, again layering distortion upon distortion, yet finding form within it's noise collection. "Sveti Urh (Saint Urth)" combines another loop of 'found' music with raw analogue synthetics & cumbersome distorted guitar. Moaning voice sounds somehow find their way through the wall of noise. Next comes a studio version of "Drzava (The State)", much cleaner but no less raw & unrelenting, it could still pass as a Punk track were it not for the lack of brightness, and the metal edge. Plenty of variety to it's sound as it powers along. The final track, and what might be regarded as the album's pay-off (as it's by far the best music here & also gives you an insight into how one of their concerts were put together) combines "Cari Amici Soldati", "Drzava (The State)" & "Svoboda (Freedom)" into one piece, spanning half an hour & easily qualifying as the longest track here. The first piece has a deeper, warmer ambience to it than the previous live things on this album, despite it's having a similar background swell of distortion. Noises grow up gradually, the track slowly forming in a non-beat collection of audio images. It gels into a tight medium-paced thing, clean, warm & clear enough to have been a studio recording. Building on another interesting-yet-simple drum pattern, it swirls with distorted guitar & synhs while a bass keeps it together. Another old piece of music is looped to fill time between tracks before the familiar "Drzava" theme kicks into life, this version probably even more wild & unbound than the previous two. The final piece forms out of the gloriously chaotic maelstrÖm left by the previous piece - factory-like clashes of hissing, rolling noise blended with raw electronics & ponderous heartbeat bass. It builds into a massive beast of a track, degrees of improvisation within it's energetic thrash whirlwind of noise.

Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.