Slovenian collective Laibach have revealed details of MUSICK, their first studio album of original material since Spectre (2014). On the new record, they celebrate and playfully critique an age of distorted reality and garish AI imitations through a collection of undeniably catchy pop songs that revel in the rush of contemporary life.
The album’s title holds the key to this duality. MUSICK suggests a sense of being overwhelmed by music, even sick of it, at a time when there is so much of it that we can barely give it our attention. More than 100,000 new tracks are uploaded online every day, and a growing number of songs are AI-generated digital waste. As with so much of modern life, even the simple act of listening to music can make us question what is real. MUSICK explores this overload through sounds and references that constantly shift and distort. It also speaks to another kind of “sickness”: a near-pathological devotion to music, “an obsession, a kind of drug”, that continues to drive Laibach in this era of excess.
The album features Allgorhythm, a collaboration with Ghanaian singer Wiyaala. Co-produced by pop producer Richard X, known for his work with Sugababes, Goldfrapp, New Order and Kelis, the track comes with a playful video featuring Laibach’s unmistakable frontman alongside Wiyaala, designed to steer your algorithm in the best possible direction. This first taste of the album is a bold mash-up of electronic pop clichés, catchy hooks and beats. In both its lyrics and its sound, it draws a clever parallel between the power of algorithms and that of music itself: both can seem to cast a spell over us. Laibach’s pop direction recently caught the attention of Slovenian public broadcaster RTV Slovenija, which considered Allgorhythm as a potential entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 before withdrawing from the competition late last year.
Laibach took a maximalist approach to making the album in their Ljubljana studio. They surrounded themselves with every kind of musical equipment imaginable, from analogue synthesisers and toys to computers packed with sound apps. They also invited collaborators from Slovenia and beyond, including longtime associate Donna Marina Mårtensson and electropop producer Richard X. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary music, from K-pop and J-pop to 1990s Eurodance, the band explored many different sounds. “Our most important influence and point of reference, however, remained Laibach itself,” they say, “in all our facets, variations and historical transformations.” MUSICK is pop through and through, but it is also unmistakably Laibach.
