Laibach - Music as a System

We meet the legendary Slovenian industrial outfit, formed in Trbovlje in 1980, who chose to name themselves after the German name for the city of Ljubljana. Fresh off the release of their new album “Musick”, Laibach tell us about the genesis and influences behind the project, casting an eye on today's music and its relationship with technology and Artificial Intelligence.

The new album, “Musick”, has as its central theme what's happening in society today, namely AI and the constant stream of music that's flooding people. Can we consider it a concept album?

Every Laibach album carries a concept, and “Musick” is a response to what's happening today, to the conditions of the present, to what music represents today. Entertainment is saturated, polluted, both with sound and with music: produced, processed, distributed and consumed on a scale that leaves no escape. AI just makes it more visible, it only accelerates the process; in this sense, this album organizes this condition rather than commenting on it from the outside.

What was it like working with Richard X, and why did you choose him?

He understands pop as architecture, as building immediacy without losing control of the details. His background moves between the mainstream and an underground sensibility, which makes him compatible with our writing process. We weren't looking for a contrast but an alignment; we needed someone bold enough to make decisions we weren't able to make ourselves.

You use a variety of instruments on this record

Yes, this reflects a kind of accumulation rather than selection. Analog synthesizers, digital instruments, software - the studio has become a field of signals; what matters isn't the origin of the sound but its function within the structure. The result isn't eclecticism, it's compression.

The track “The Divine Child” was written with AI and is dedicated to AI: how did you use it?

No part of the album was actually written with AI. For “Das Göttliche Kind (The Divine Child)”, we only used it during the development process, as a kind of consultant. It suggested fragments of text, specifically tied to the theme of artificial intelligence. We treated these inputs as raw material, shaping them through our own editing and contextualizing processes. The piece reflects a system that produces meaning without intention, but which still requires human intervention to stabilize it.

What's your take on the algorithm?

The algorithm is no longer a tool; it's an environment. It determines visibility, rhythm, repetition and disappearance. It doesn't need to assert itself explicitly: it operates through selection. In music, it defines what gets heard and what remains silent. We work within this structure, because it already shapes the conditions of listening.

Did you also collaborate with Rollins Band in the 80s?

We didn't tour with Rollins Band, but there were parallel trajectories and occasional overlaps within the broader network of independent scenes.

Which records influenced you the most, and why?

Influence isn't something we recognize as a list of references. In the current album it's embedded in the materials we use. Still, certain structures remain constant: the discipline of Kraftwerk, the formal clarity of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the industrial logic of early electronic and post-industrial productions. These aren't sources of inspiration, but operating structures. But if you ask which album had a strong impact on us, it would probably be “Radio-Activity” by Kraftwerk. Not in a sentimental sense, but rather as an operating model. The record treats sound as information, repetition as structure, and technology as both subject and medium. It reduces music to a signal: measured, transmitted, received. This approach coincides with our own conception of music as a system rather than an expression. “Radio-Activity” also shows how content can be embedded in form. Its themes – communication, radiation, invisible forces – aren't illustrated but enacted through minimalism, rhythm and controlled variation. Meaning is carried by the process. What remains decisive is its discipline: the reduction of elements, the precision of execution, the refusal of excess. It shows that music can function as infrastructure: stable, repeatable, and open to reinterpretation.

Are there any new artists you've been following lately?

We don't follow artists in the conventional sense. We observe patterns: how sound circulates, how forms mutate, how visibility is constructed. Contemporary pop, including K-pop and other highly systematized genres, offers a clear model of how culture is organized today. Individual authorship becomes secondary to the system that produces and distributes it. But the last album that truly impressed us was “Lux” by Rosalía.

Who are your favorite directors?

If you want names, here they are: Jacques Tati, Charlie Chaplin, Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, John Carpenter, Ridley Scott, Francis Ford Coppola, Andrej Tarkovskij, Aleksandr Sokurov, Nagisa Oshima, Bernardo Bertolucci, Roman Polanski, Walerian Borowczyk, Billy Wilder, Andrzej Żuławski, Masaki Kobayashi, Gaspar Noé, Paolo Sorrentino, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Martin Scorsese, Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, Michael Haneke, Rainer Fassbinder, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luis Buñuel… and many others.

Laibach composed the soundtrack for the film “Iron Sky”: what can you tell us about that experience?

We wrote the music for both “Iron Sky” films. The project was partly inspired by Laibach, so director Timo Vuorensola invited us to create the soundtrack, and we accepted. The film already had a constructed mythology in place, which we translated into sound. Our role wasn't to illustrate the narrative, but to reinforce its internal logic. In that sense, film music becomes a mechanism of organization: it structures perception, guides emotion, and stabilizes the world presented on screen. It was a very positive experience for us, and we learned a great deal during the process.

(24 May 2026)

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google