Dressing Up

The Slovenian band Laibach isn't afraid of raising the hackles of music fans. The musicians have provoked controversy by wearing uniforms that seem to be inspired by German and Italian fascist groups at concerts, and have put symbols of totalitarian governments on their album covers.

At Laibach's last concert in Moscow, in September 2005, a couple of teenagers unrolled a red-and-white Nazi flag before being heckled into furling it up by angry members of the crowd. Asked how they feel about the episode, the band's members have replied, with typical ambiguity, "We felt moved and intrigued."

But they insist that they're not fascist sympathizers: "We are as much fascists as Hitler was a painter," they frequently repeat.

Laibach are Slovenia's well-traveled experimental music ambassadors and will perform two shows at Ikra this weekend. The shows wrap up a European tour in support of Laibach's new album, "Volk," a collection of "re-interpretations" of the national anthems of several countries, including Russia.

The group is well-known for re-interpretations of songs, including all of those on the Beatles' album "Let It Be" (except for the title track), the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil," Queen's "One Vision," Europe's "The Final Countdown" and the title track to the rock opera "Jesus Christ, Superstar." Some people might call them covers, but band members argue that they're something more.

"In fact, we don't do covers. We adopt and adapt songs," band spokesperson Ivan Nowak said by e-mail Monday. Nowak joined the group in the mid-1980s, and though he no longer appears on stage with them, he helps shape their musical direction.

Forming in 1980 in the coal mining town of Trbovlje, Laibach takes its name from the antiquated German name for Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, which was then part of Yugoslavia. Starting out noisy and exploratory, Laibach subsequently moved toward more rhythmic and streamlined music.

Laibach's distinctive sound makes use of epic orchestral motifs and, occasionally, heavy percussion, such as timpani. Another characteristic element is the gravelly bass voice of Milan Fras, the band's lithe and goateed lead singer, who typically wears a black headdress with shoulder-length drapes and belts out the mostly English and German lyrics in a deadpan, but somehow emphatic, Slavic-accented growl.

The band has branched out from music and could also be called a globally-minded art project. It is part of Neue Slowenische Kunst (German for "New Slovenian Art," or NSK), an artists' collective co-founded by Laibach. NSK artists work in various media, including painting and film, and use political symbols in their work. NSK has even made what might be the ultimate political art project -- their own state, complete with passports, postage stamps, consulates in several cities and art shows that members describe as "embassies." One took place in 1992 in a private apartment in Moscow.

Laibach are old hands in Russia. Before this tour, they played in Russia several times - three times in Moscow, twice in St. Petersburg, and once each in Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Barnaul.

"Our impressions [of Russia] are impressive," Nowak said. "There are no words big enough to describe them. Russian audiences can be aggressively receptive and friendlily hostile. But we can live with that."

Nowak even hinted that Slovenians have a certain affinity for Russians.

"We understand Russians as our cousins from far away," he said. "An old Slovenian proverb goes: We and the Russians together are 150 million."

Laibach plays Sat. at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 9 p.m. at Ikra, located in the Gogol Theater at 8A Ulitsa Kazakova, Metro Kurskaya. Tel. 262-4482.