Nationalism goes pop - Quo Vadis Laibach?

by Hanno Reichel

Prologue

For more than two decades, LAIBACH could have always been described as the –slightly oxymoronious- image of a dynamic monolith, claiming on the one hand stoically “Ich bin ein Bild von Stein und Zeit und ich steh´ still in Ewigkeit” (KAPITAL), while on the other hand seemingly travelling through time and space at lightspeed and far beyond. Being strictly loyal to their most basic principles, and by the same time always reacting and adapting sagaciously to the cultural, historic and geopolitical background of their actions, LAIBACH´s concrete appearances were predictable for their basic inspiration and idea but by the same time totally unpredictable for the applied methods, which reached musically from atonal industrial via rock to smooth and sophisticated techno, lyrically from Tito via Jesus to Nietzsche and optically from Stalin via obscure SS-officers to futurist cosmonauts. Paralleling Kubrick´s monolith in “2001”, the LAIBACHian monolith kept its symmetric appearance and eternal durability, while flexibly changing its ways of communication (or non-communication) with the outside according to the given surrounding.     

The release of “WAT” and “Anthems” in 2003 and 2004 marked a certain cut, having the air of a stock-taking and re-calibration. These albums might –in accordance with recent statements of the band in interviews- later be seen as a big “FORMAT C:” in the operating system of LAIBACH, to regain capacity for future things to come. After 25 years of interrogating most different kinds of systems and regimes, after decades of serving as a most powerful and irritating question mark on both sides of the iron curtain and later on a global basis, the attested “end of history” (LAIBACH) and the anticipated end of the process called globalization (Sloterdijk), even the timeless and impregnable fortress LAIBACH seemed to be in need of some wise rebuilding and change. While the 2005 project  LAIBACHKUNSTDERFUGE still seemed to be some kind of intrinsical and experimental reflection on these certain changes, it appears that “VOLK” marks the beginning of a new era in the history of LAIBACH: After remaining in “SILENCE” for some time, LAIBACH reappeared on stage with an album being more direct, open, understandable (and maybe mass-compatible) than any other before, but also –at least superficially- leaving the common grounds of LAIBACHian style-elements totally for the very first time, and, in doing so, LAIBACH might irritate their audience more than ever.

Pop-Nationalism?

Staging “VOLK” in Germany´s capitol city Berlin, LAIBACH found the most archetypical audience of German “Befindlichkeiten”, stuck somewhere between the post-war suppression of any national feelings (except holocaust-related guilt and purely materialistic “Wirtschaftswunder”-pride) and the sensitive offspring of the first new and innocent “normal” patriotism that had been emerging in the first massive use of flags and national symbols in Germany after 1945 - during the celebrations of the soccer-world cup in the summer of 2006. Maybe this image of contemporary nationalism –even though it is the quite unique and special German situation- brings to the light of the day the actual value of nationalism at least in the European hemisphere: Tamed cultural and political nationalism is of course still in existence (with all its positive and negative aspects, including right-wing-extremism and xenophobia), but in these post-political times on a post-globalized planet, nationality –as well as religion- seems to have lost its exclusive and solemn role of self-definition for man. As nationality is no longer rooted in certain “Blut-und-Boden”-ideologies, but rather in formative administrative acts, and after western democracy has replaced the former authoritarian bonds of people in certain national states with the element of worldwide free choice, the former national and religious points of identification have lost their more or less unique powers and stand in competition for the winning of people´s hearts and minds with other transcendental and metaphysical longings and ideas, material wealth, and the aims of innumerable individual interests on the market.

In this sense, nationalism and religion themselves are starting to become nothing more and nothing less than a part of popular culture in the (often mentioned but not yet founded) global village. If this is the case, LAIBACHs former method of adapting the forms of certain systems (“DRZAVA”), reflecting ideologically on items of pop-culture (“GEBURT EINER NATION”) or interrogating certain systems with the means of pop (“NATO”) might be in danger to get outdated these days, while we witness ideology, nationalism, politics and religion melt together into a chaotic mixture of interchangeable elements of pop. Back in the 1980ies, LAIBACH stated that “pop music is for sheep, and we are wolves disguised as shepherds”. Back then, the meaning of that statement was clear. Maybe today that statement (which reappears largely on the actual merchandise-objects of the “VOLK”-tour) needs a new interpretation. If by now everything is pop (and thus everyone is part of the cannibalistic flock), where is the need for a shepherd and –the even more disturbing question-: where is a task for the wolves?      

Volk

After chiming the audience with historic partisan-songs for about half an hour, an instrumental version of the original German anthem was played from tape as some kind of intro. Accompanying these sounds, the lights in the hall and on stage where highlighted, visually pushing the audience violently into the active role of protagonists. The results of that experiment were expectable: Obviously nobody dared to take that invitation seriously and  sing along the anthem, the reaction of the audience was –except for some whistles and laughter- most insecure and embarrassed. With the final sounds of the “Lied der Deutschen” fading out, the keyboarders and drummer of SILENCE and singer Mina Spiler entered the stage to the beginning sounds of “Germaniya”, later accompanied by LAIBACH´s lead-singer and frontman. The further reactions of the audience towards “Germaniya” were equally symbolic for the actual state of nationalism in Germany and interesting to witness: The typical reaction of the obligatory right-wing-fraction, scanning “Sieg Heil” and showing the “Hitlergruß”, failed to appear this time, while in the countermove, the intellectual (and mostly left-wing) parts of the audience seemed surprisingly willing to accept the lines “Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles…” without protest for the very first time in their lives.  

Following up, LAIBACH presented the whole “VOLK”-program except for the track “Vaticanae” in the same order as on the album. Amplifying the impact of the pure music, two large displays above the stage showed video-material fitting the certain songs with related imagery on the background of national colors and symbols. The basic visual concept of these video-clips which accompanied the different tracks was more or less the same: Minimalist imagery (signs, symbols and national colors) was mixed with typical –and partly contradicting- images of symbolized values and/or traumas of the certain portrayed national states. Good examples for this visual method might be the demonstrated German contradiction between the strive for economic –and most of all industrial- power (in the typical “Wirtschaftswunder”-imagery of the 1950ies) on the one hand and the ecological consciousness (shown in traumatic and apocalyptical images of “Waldsterben”) on the other hand or the difficult Turkish relation between traditional archaic nationalism/religious fanaticism and Kemal Atatuerk´s modern progressive ways of human rights and todays EU-ambitions. By the way, in connection with “Türkiye”, it will remain LAIBACH´s secret forever, wether the scanning of the name Kemal Atatuerk, founder of the Turkish republic, in the aggressive syllabic division “ATA … TUERK!” was an ode to the contemporary western islamophobic reflex (manifested in 9/11-hijacker and mastermind Mohammed ATTA) or musical necessity only.

Generally speaking, the mentioned examples also summarize the basic idea of “VOLK” which seems to be similar in all the tracks, the LAIBACHian toying with the various “hidden reverses” (Zizek) of the interrogated national values and symbols: The difficult relation between the revolutionary slogans of “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” and the contemporary riots in the suburbs of Paris (Francia) or the problems of a metamorphosis of former empires/superpowers (Anglia, Rossiya).

The overlapping visual reference to the LAIBACH-concept in the used videos (except for “Anglia” which was the regular video-clip) seemed to be accordingly the interrogation of the represented systems and states. This interrogation (or even penetration) was visually signified by what could possibly be identified as the new LAIBACH-symbol which had already appeared on the cover of “VOLK” for the very first time and might possibly replace the suprematist MALEVICH-cross as the typical identifier of LAIBACH´s works in the future. This new symbol, being an obscure composition of a stylized eagle and a massive drill, used to appear once in a while in the displays, being a timeless empowering nationality mark on the background of most different national colours and by the same time a massive infraction, drilling itself painfully right into the inner core of a certain national state´s imagery and symbolism. An additional –and even more cynical- interpretation of that symbol might be found in its similarity to the former logo of the traditional German banking-house “Volksbank”, pointing out that todays nations on the background of global economy are based on nothing more but the values of KAPITAL, and that the logos of international finance might soon replace the heralding figures of past time´s nations and states.

Speaking of the specific reactions of the German audience once more, it occurred that the track which was greeted and applauded to most enthusiastically and seriously was “Yisra-el”. Maybe the reasons for that appreciation are deeper than the fact that it is musically one of the most sophisticated tracks on “VOLK” and the reaction of the audience could be seen as a graduated scale for the massive occupancy of German politics and population with the middle-east problem and the sympathy taken for both sides of this certain conflict which was figured impressively in the live-performance of that very track.

The track with the second strongest reaction of the audience was “NSK”. Being much less bombastic and proud than the original “The Great Seal” in the actual remix on “VOLK” the anthem-like character might have gotten lost a little in a live-performance, but the accompanying visuals (traditional eagle-imagery combined the already well-known multilingual slogan “Become a citizen of the first global state of the universe, the state of NSK”) made it an alarmingly perfect piece of utopian propaganda.

After “NSK”, LAIBACH re-entered the stage for a small set of “WAT”-songs plus “Alle gegen Alle”, presented in a more aggressive manner similar to the “WAT”-tour, dismissing the charismatic Mina Spiler and introducing once more the two female “little drummers” that gave the stage-performance the fitting aggressive and powerful impression.

Speaking of the music on the whole it should be noted that LAIBACH´s cooperation with the Slovene Band SILENCE led to a slight shift in the sound-structures of LAIBACH: Leaving out guitars and bass and replacing them by multiple keyboards made the overall sounds of the “VOLK”- as well as the “WAT”-tracks more electronic (and thus less aggressive), replacing former guitar solos with confusing sequencer-sounds and partly adding a nearly kraftwerkian undertone to certain melodic sections.  

The concert was concluded by the beginning wagnerian sounds of “Opus Dei” which –after they had already been greeted enthusiastically by the audience for what they seemed to be- turned out to be the intro for a “LAIBACH-medley”, a composition of LAIBACH-tracks from all ages remixed by DJ Turk. To those remixed sounds of past times the band bowed and waved friendly to the audience, establishing a kind of relation between artist and audience that might be normal for any pop-concert, but quite new for a LAIBACH-performance.

Quo vadis, LAIBACH?

While the conceptual approach of “VOLK” seems a logical result of the current global situation and a solid continuation in LAIBACH´s history, the continious shift towards a more open, pop-music related and far less cryptic approach in their superficial appearance will leave the long-term connaisseurs of LAIBACH and NSK irritated and puzzled until further notice. After more than 25 years of strictly totalitarian proceeding, it is already small shifts and gestures that shake the long-term image of the LAIBACHian monolith: A visible smile of the frontman to the audience, collective bowing after the final encore, etc. After decades of existence as an anonymous collective of “Vier Personen”, it seems revolutionary that a LAIBACH-show features movie-like end titles with credits by name to the involved artists, even if LAIBACH themselves were –in contrast to supporting artists like Mina Spiler or the female “little drummers” only mentioned once again as the cryptic collective of SALIGER-EBER-KELLER-DACHAUER. In contrast to the former mystic and anonymous behaviour of the band on stage as well as in interviews, the a.m. features of the show are one more massive move towards mass media-ability and positive public relations.

It would be shortsighted to explain these massive shifts only as tendency towards a more streamlined approach under the force of the market, commerce and musical industry (although it has to be taken into consideration that even LAIBACH might not be absolutely above such restraints). Remembering the a.m. sheep/shepherd/wolves-simile, the difficult situation and task for LAIBACH becomes clear: If everything, including LAIBACH´s main playgrounds politics and religion, is pop (or at least can be made an element of pop) it seems quite useless to keep acting as an organism outside of this extensive system. In other words: If politics and religion tend to lose their inner meaning and be reduced to nothing more but pop, the only way to question and analyze politics and religion automatically leads to the method of pop. In times when totalitarian developments are no longer based on military power, violent suppression and physical/psychic terror but on the use of mass-media, it seems logical that LAIBACH tend to discharge their martial uniforms and replace them by an appearance that would –in its final consequence- fit a latenight talkshow. In the same logic that makes todays politicians appear like harmless businessmen, bosses like good friends (Zizek), the pope like a pop star and pop stars like Gods, LAIBACH is wise to disguise their timeless and sublime mission in this new garment and camouflage.

Epilogue

After the last real wolves have disappeared from earth and the sheep turned cannibalistic in the purest form of “Alle gegen Alle”, LAIBACH once again unites us in a static scream when the situation becomes clear: The former ostensible shepherds of ideology and religion have left the flock for good, and it is up to the Volk itself to find its way towards the future, whatever this future may bring: The return of the shepherds, the return of the wolves, the return of the wolves disguised as shepherds? If this is the case, the staging of LAIBACH´s “VOLK” might serve as an important signpost, demonstrating both, the massive effects and total exchangeability of the flock´s values and rituals.

WIR SIND DAS VOLK!