Music

The controversial Laibach first foreign act to perform in North Korea

by Jeremy Mersereau

If you were a North Korean cultural official charged with booking a foreign act to perform in the glorious bastion of socialist freedom Pyongyang, who would make the cut?

Would you try and get Springsteen? Of course not, no American capitalist pigdogs are worthy of such an honour! How about Bowie? What? An English degenerate? I am beginning to question your commitment to magnificent Juche ideology, comrade!

No, clearly there is only one band whose music and actions display the correct alignment with Juche thought, and are therefore the correct choice for the North Korean people: Slovenian industrial rockers Laibach! Who? These guys!

Formed in 1980 in what was then Yugoslavia, Laibach is best known for their ironic covers of rock standards like Europe’s “The Final Countdown” and their outrageous image and aesthetic (not to mention the ominous stage uniforms) which parody nationalism and fascism… or so the band claim, having been accused of genuine neo-nationalist sympathies many times in the past.

Laibach is slated to perform on August 19th and 20th – the anniversary of the peninsula’s liberation from Japan – at the Kim Won Gyun Music Conservatory in Pyongyang. Ah, those foolish and naive North Korean officials, I hear the Laibach fans chortling; They obviously fell for the band’s tongue-in-cheek hyper-authoritarian, militaristic image and are expecting an exhilarating endorsement of their ideology. In reality they’re going to get a faceful of satirical buckshot, right to the belief system! Ha ha! Those hapless totalitarians are going to be made fools of, surely!

Don’t get excited: Mortin Traavik, the Norwegian artistic director responsible for booking the performances, told the BBC that the shows will be totally uncontroversial, and that he has given his word to the North Korean government that the band will be perfectly well-behaved and not cause any trouble. Pretty rock ‘n’ roll! The shows will include performances of classic North Korean folk songs, as well as cuts from The Sound of Music.

Damn, this show is gonna be off the hook. I’m gonna go totally bonkers during “We Will Hold Our Bayonets More Firmly“.