marcello d.
Full of wonderful pictures that look like truth revealing lies: the making of a stage, in a country where EVERYTHING is a stage. Or maybe it's just a concert in a weird place ?!? Funny, absurd, and a great reading too... when you think that it can't get much Laibacher than this, it still surprises (its stills, also). Just one warning: if you like Laibach, you'll end up loving them... be prepared for the consequences :D
José Luis C.
At last, and after much less shipping time than my previous Also Sprach Zarathustra CD order, Liberation Days is here at my side, and as my second WTC purchase (third, actually, if we count Laibach: Revisited), this is a very pleasant surprise!
Since I couldn't post a proper review for Zarathustra before (I made a mess with the reviews last time, sorry), I wanted to take the time to write a little bit about both purchases in this space ;) as a way to thank you guys for these produkts!
1) With a sonority and atmosphere reminiscent of Laibach's early works such as Nova Akropola and M.B. December 21 1984, Also Sprach Zarathustra embraces the interplay of old and new, static and dynamic, in a true retroavantgardist gesamtkunstwerk across philosophy, stage performance and sonic experimentation. And even as the soundtrack to the play directed by Matjaž Berger and based on one of Nietzsche's most read, discussed, and (in perfect Laibach fashion) misquoted works around the world, one could be forgiven for thinking it is a standalone Laibach release (which it could, in a natural way, be, given Laibach's penchant for surprise, and, unsurprisingly, for using the language of misunderstanding) which is just alright as most of us didn't get the chance to attend the play and fully enjoy (or suffer, again, in Laibach fashion) the project as a total work of art. Anyway, (along with the live recordings) Also Sprach Zarathustra is the second-best alternative to that. Dark, abstract, meditative and utterly Industrial, Spectre (grandiose in its own right) this is not. You won't stay indifferent to Milan Fras, "Ein Verkündiger des Blitzes", heralding the Overman!
2) And speaking of second-best alternatives to unlikely and history-making live events happening so far and beyond our travelling chances, the Liberation Days book edited by Jean Valnoir Simuolin and Morten Traavik (the mastermind behind the whole North Korean
endeavour) chronicles, in a funny yet insightful way, the trials and tribulations that made the event possible, well documented through transcriptions of news articles around the world and email conversations between Traavik and NK representatives, along with essays (including one about North Korea as a motherly institution by long-time Laibach fan, philosopher, sociologist, psychoanalysis theorist, pop culture critic all-rolled-into-one Slavoj Žižek!) and photographic testimony both from Pyongyang and early Laibach's Yugoslav background, highlighting the ideological, political and structural parallels between both. This book works not only as a companion to the forthcoming "The Sound of Music" album, but
also as a document on our ideological relationship to the totalitarism of our times, be it "North Korean", "fascist", "Western", "mediatic" and whatnot. It showcases one of the
most revealing actions on a specific context, and examines its effects both from the inside and on the rest of the Western world reacting with ambivalence and suspicion. It celebrates cultural exchange while highlighting (and testing) its limits in terms of the Western world's relationship with one of the most misunderstood regimes of recent history (and keep in mind that "Western" might not actually apply to Laibach itself, much to the media reports' chagrin). And it does it in style. Highly recommended to anyone remotely interested in one of the most fascinating interventions of the early 21st Century, by one of the most fascinating (if not the most fascinating) cultural entities of all time.
