BULDOŽER - "ZABRANJENO PLAKATIRATI" (1977)

Buldožer were the most critically acclaimed band from Slovenia. A huge part of their myth was built around their debut album, "Pljuni istini u oči" (1975). To be honest, I don't like it very much, since it was heavily influenced by Frank Zappa and featured too many comedy sketches and spoken parts.

"Zabranjeno plakatirati" is their second studio effort and their real masterpiece, looking at Captain Beefheart instead of Zappa, and mixing his influence with a rigorous, mathematical approach to guitar riffs and rhythm tricks. You can give it a try if you like avant-prog, but also if you like blues rock... something you can't say about many other albums.

Boris Bele - guitars, vocals

Vili Bertok - bass
Marko Brecelj - vocals
Borut Činč - keyboards
Tone Dimnik - drums 
Uroš Lovšin - guitars

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TOMAŽ PENGOV - "ODPOTOVANJA" (1973)

I hate not being able to say anything of interest about the albums I am presenting on the blog. Unfortunately, everything I was able to find about this artist is written in Slovene. The little I know is that this album was recorded domestically by singer songwriter Tomaž Pengov ‎(1949-2014) when he was a student and then released on vynil with the help of his university.

It wasn't a successful record but it became a cult classic over the years (even Branimir Štulić from Azra praised it). I'm posting it because I love Pengov's delicate voice and peaceful acoustic guitar style, but I know that I am probably missing out an important part of these songs, as I don't understand a word of their lyrics.

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LAIBACH - "WAT" (2003)

"Wat" marked Laibach's return to original compositions after a hiatus of seven years. 
It is a surprisingly solid and creative album, with the band at the height of its instrumental power. It contains a sequence of devastating Electronic Body Music tracks, with danceable techno beats, bombastic choirs, and sharp synthesizer progressions. 
The anthem "Tanz mit Laibach" is probably their most successful attempt on this front (I consider it at the same level of D.A.F.'s "Der Mussolini").

Anyway, "B Mashina" and "Anti-Semitism", the opening and the closing track respectively, are different from the rest. The first is a radical re-working of a song originally performed by Slovenian band Siddharta (it's amazing how Laibach converted a bland rock song into a science-fiction industrial masterpiece), the second is a martial tragedy with orchestral arrangements, which once again shows the horror of which humans are capable ("Down the road they go, Down the road they go, Against us they go, Against you they go, With crosses on the foreheads, With fire in the eyes, With crosses on the foreheads, With a star in their hearts").

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LAIBACH - "OPUS DEI" (1987)

Not necessarily the most beautiful, but probably the most important industrial music album of the 80s. 

Being the most famous Yugoslavian band among Western listeners, Laibach doesn't need particular introductions. Their aesthetic - reminding both Nazism and Italian Fascism - was so extreme, provocative, and ambiguous that they were banned all across Yugoslavia from 1983 to 1986. "Opus Dei" is the album that marked their return to Slovenia, their first commercial success, and their first approaches to melodic songs (composing their owns, but also covering international pop hits). They did not sing in their native language, preferring German and English.    
Laibach's self-penned tracks are really good (i.e. "Leben-Tod", a powerful industrial march, and "Trans-National", with its dancing vortex of samples), but what makes "Opus Dei" so brilliant is its overwhelming power to decontextualize existing songs. 
"One Vision" by Queen, transformed in "Geburt Einer Nation", sounds as an hymn to the Aryan race, with these martial rhythms, bombastic synths and brass, and harsh German declaiming. The fact that the band was composed by Slavs in its entirety makes it even more grotesque. 
A candid song such as "Life is Life", originally performed by Opus, is re-worked in two versions, "Leben heißt Leben" and "Opus Dei", both now sounding as a colossal apology to military life.  
This is nothing less than sheer genius, it makes you feel amused on one side and teased on the other. At that time, both anarchists and totalitarists were pissed off by this music, and that proves Laibach's unquestionable power more than anything else.

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BORGHESIA - "NO HOPE NO FEAR" (1987)

Let's start this blog with a Slovenian cult band formed in 1982. 
Aldo Ivančić (drums) and Dario Seraval (vocals) played Electronic Body Music in the style of bands such as D.A.F., Front 242, and Nitzer Ebb, with industrial influences here and there.
This EP was released in 1987 and is one of their most celebrated works.
The sound of Slovene language is softer than German, but the music is still harsh, with sharp beats and cavernous synth sequences. 
Their career lasted 13 years, but I honestly don't know what happened after their break-up.

DOWNLOAD (kbps: 320)