MUSICK, Laibach’s first studio album of original material since 2014’s Spectre. MUSICK, finds Laibach simultaneously celebrating and playfully critiquing our present era of warped reality and gaudy AI copycatting with a collection of undeniably catchy pop that revels in hyper-driven post-modernity.
The album’s title, MUSICK, holds the key to this duality. It speaks of oversaturation, being sick of music at a time where there is so much of it that we can barely engage.
Over 100,000 new tracks are uploaded online each day, and an increasing number of songs are AI creations, digital waste. Like so much of contemporary life, the simple act of listening to music now makes us question reality.
MUSICK speaks to this sickness through its constantly warping sounds and reference points, but it also speaks to another kind of sickness: a pathological devotion to music – “an obsession, a kind of drug” – which continues to drive Laibach in this era of oversaturation.