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The Malmö festival is a big city festival that takes place in one of the largest cities in Sweden . The festivities are spread out all over the city and every year many thousands of people take part in the festival. One part of the festival called The Subspace Encounter presents a line-up of purely electro-industrial acts every year. This time around Laibach was the main attraction alongside artists such as Spetsnaz, Mortiis, Elegant Machinery and Jeans Team.

After reaching the festival area and realizing that I can't access the small backstage area in a hot although windy Malmö, I use modern technology to make a call to one of the group leader Ivan and ask him to meet me outside the gates. We decide to take a short walk and shortly find a good enough spot to have a chat about his involvement in the band, influences, NSK, noise and touring. As you'll soon find out Ivan seemed to be in a good mood and almost took over the interview for a moment.

First of all, I want to talk to you a bit about your latest album W.A.T. (not counting Anthems as it's a compilation of sorts). It's quite different from your earlier recordings. I would say it's old-school with sort of minimalist beats and bass lines brought to modern day. Would you agree on this?

Novak: Yeah, I mean we wanted to do something as simple as possible, without too much of arrangements and so on. One part of Laibach was always tending towards minimalism, and the other part was always very pompous. So we are always trying to find a way to put these two things together. Laibach is a very contradictory and controversial group; we are always trying to put together the opposites.

I got a feeling from the Anthems booklet that much seems to be about bringing the past to modern day, old to new and the other way around.

Novak: Yes, because we believe that time is moving in cycles anyway. If you know anything about history and so on, you will always find similar patterns. Nothing has started from today; everything has its roots somewhere. Some people are simply repeating things without even knowing that the roots of their music have existed since way, way ago.

Is DAF, or Deutsche Amerikanische Freundschaft, a big influence for you?

Novak: DAF is a very important group, because they also belong to the first line of electronic music. So they did have the possibility to think from the very start, in a way. I mean electronic music was a big novelty when it started. DAF belong to a group of lucky pioneers, together with groups like Kraftwerk, Suicide and groups like that. They had the privilege to start at the actual fundament.

There are no covers on the newest album, W.A.T. ?

Novak: There is really only one cover, and that's the first song, 'B mashina.' It's basically a cover of a Slovenian group, who are kind of huge in Slovenia. They invited us to do a remix of their song, and then we changed quite a lot of things so somehow it's become a Laibach song.

You have done quite a lot of covers over the years. Could you tell about your relationship to covers?

Novak: Yeah, in fact we really don't do cover songs, we do interpretations. The way we understand cover songs is more like for instance what Gwen Stefani did with the Talk Talk song. It's basically the same as the original Talk Talk song, except that the original has more charm. But what we do are interpretations; it's completely legitimate material. Pretty much like if somebody does a Shakespeare play or whatever.

I agree, I think many modern pop songs are more or less covers even if they aren't supposed to, or at least don't state the source of the material.

Novak: Exactly, because the nature of modern pop music is that it actually takes from others. You cannot invent something completely new. Modern electronic music is based on samples in fact, something which was impossible to do 30 years ago.

I was going to move in on the subject of 'New Originals' later on, but since we're already discussing this matter I'll throw it in here. In the Anthems booklet (once again) it describes that any pop song, no matter how naive it seems, can carry a political statement. This is what you are trying to highlight with your interpretations, or 'New Originals'?

Novak: Yeah, we are actually showing that every song has a hidden meaning somehow, somewhere, knowing it, or not knowing it.

Do you see yourself as a pop musician?

Novak: Basically yes, because we work within a pop culture.

It seems very important for some to be alternative, or independent and not group together with pop music.

Novak: Yeah, but alternative basically doesn't mean anything and you got incredible groups who supposedly are playing an alternative style of music like for example Rage Against The Machine, and they're a major pop group. And there is really no independence. We all depend on each other.

How do you work when you compose and create the tracks?

Novak: It's very different from record to record. Sometimes we work separately and then take our files and upgrade them. There absolutely are no rules. We use different technology for every new record. We work with different programs and also with different people, so there are absolutely no rules.

Around the release of W.A.T. I read a review in a major Swedish newspaper which basically ended with a sentence like 'This is music for people who want to dress like Adolf Hitler.'

Novak: It's always about interpretations, it always tells more about them than about us.

Do you get that kind of reaction often?

Novak: We get similar reactions pretty often. Many are still obsessed by the idea that we are fascists, other people think that we are hardcore communists. We are just aware of the importance of history and historic events. We believe that popular culture, a basically heavily influenced category, has the right to research its entire context, including history, politics, economy and so on.

You serve questions rather than answers?

Novak: Exactly. In many ways we give the opportunity to people to answer themselves; we force them to. If the only thing they were able to find was a fascist dimension they're talking about themselves.

You've been out on quite an extensive tour this year, as I understand it's heading near its end now?

Novak: Basically, we are still going to have some concerts until the end of the year but in fact we are kind of closing down this program. We're working on a new record and expect to have a completely new program next year.

What will we see and hear from tonight? I guess it's still pretty based around the W.A.T. album?

Novak: Basically yes, but with some tracks from Anthems also. We actually thought about including some new songs but it wouldn't fit in the program.

You'd expect the new songs to be rather different then. Could you tell anything about the upcoming album? Is there a release date planned?

Novak: I hope for a release in May next year, but it all depends on how fast we'll be able to finish it and Mute's policy of bringing it out. Actually, we are working on two records at the moment and we hope to be able to bring both of them out next year. One will be a little more pop-oriented and the other one will be more instrumental.

You've performed with the aid of a large orchestra in your hometown, could you please tell me about that?

Novak: We did a concert with the philharmonic orchestra in Ljubljana in 1987. We still hope to be able to bring out the DVD of that concert, but there's a bit of problem with the orchestra because they didn't like the concert as much as we did. They aren't very keen to publish it. In fact there are some people in the orchestra who are absolutely against that. And we need their consent in order to publish it.

Could you give me a short briefing on NSK, what is NSK?

Novak: NSK originally existed as Neue Schlowenische Kunst, an art movement. It was basically established in 1984 in Ljubljana by several different groups who in a way were inspired by what Laibach was doing. The fact is that Laibach was officially forbidden in 1983 in Slovenia , it's an old story. The main reason was that we were using this German name, Laibach. The real reason was something else but that was their formal reason at least. Therefore, one of our reactions was creating a bigger collective than Laibach; something that had different groups working in different media, theatre, art, design and so on. They couldn't forbid something which had such name and the whole thing was suddenly everywhere, much bigger than Laibach.

So it was originally a way to get around the ban?

Novak: In a way, we entered the same space from the back door. NSK then developed into a big important movement, and it existed in such forms until 1992 when Yugoslavia fell apart. Later on we decided to reorganize everything and actually create a state, the state of NSK. It is a state without territory where we would only be citizens and other people could join from all around the world. So it has become a wider thing, not a strong movement which is very tied together but something that has spread all over the world. This is how it exists still nowadays, we don't control it. People enter the state and create their own idea of what NSK is, which is good. Some people are using the passports in very creative ways. Some people are traveling with them, getting stamps and reporting us. Other people use them only for collecting and so.

[Ivan suddenly comments the T-shirt I'm wearing, which reads ?Enjoy Noise,' imitating a Coca-Cola advertisement, and suddenly the tables turn.]

Novak: That's a nice T-shirt you're wearing. Do you like such music?

I think it's very interesting music in a way that it's very different.

Novak: We don't like to talk about things that haven't even started yet, but we were thinking of doing a completely new noise symphony with philharmonic orchestra of Ljubljana . I've spoken with the director and he's very interested to do it together with us. That's my big vision, a really strong noise symphony with the philharmonic orchestra playing really hardcore noise.

Yeah, that would be really interesting. Usually noise acts tend to include just a few people and tons of effect-boxes, microphones?

Novak: Yeah yeah, that's all relevant, that's all fine. One part of the show which we did with the orchestra in 1987 actually included quite a good part of noise, a small part. That was something really, really special, and we would like to do something much bigger.

You've used ?real' instruments quite often, only the latter albums tend to be more about programming and such?

Novak: In the studio we like to experiment, but one stage we like to keep it as simple as possible. We don't like to experiment much on stage. Even Kraftwerk just stand there with their computers. We used to have homemade instruments and such but nowadays you have all those sounds and all those possibilities with a computer. Laptop music is fine, but it's not very attractive.

What will you have on stage this evening? Are the drummers from the last visit in Sweden 2002 present this time around?

Novak: Yes, they are. We like to keep the same gear and the same show usually, and then we add some tracks or so. On festivals we usually don't really get the equipment we ask for, we are quite limited here today.

This festival is like a small part of the full city festival which takes place more or less all over the city of Malmö . I don't know which stages are the better but I guess this isn't the main area.

Novak: I think it's megalomania. I think it isn't very tempting to adapt to the geology of everybody has to have a good time. Festivals like this are all over the world and we are quite restrictive toward the idea of such festivals. It usually gets very chaotic and so on.

[The tape used to record the interview suddenly stops and Ivan and I continue to talk a bit about other subjects such as the nature and architecture found in the area. He takes some photos with his camera before taking a polite farewell and returning to the backstage area.]