Ashley Pomeroy

WAT by Laibach ( CDSTUMM223)

Laibach have always been a joke, albeit of the blackest and most deadpan variety. Formed in the coal-mining town of Trbovlje, Slovenia, shortly after the death of Tito, the group parodied totalitarianism by becoming a totalitarian rock band, with a pseudo-political art party, with poster campaigns which borrowed elements of Nazi and Communist iconography, by dressing in military uniform, and by performing brutal industrial music on stages covered in militaria. In the West, this kind of thing seemed whimsical when acted out by Devo or Siouxie Sioux, but Laibach went the whole hog, and in a country that had been occupied and brutalised by the Nazis and the Communists this was too much. From 1983 to 1987 the group were forbidden by the authorities from using their name in live performance in Yugoslavia's capital. Their message was simple; there was something in Yugoslavia, Eastern Europe and humankind that drove it towards war, and no amount of international good intentions could prevent it. Their covers of Western rock music were legendary, whether highlighting the absurdity of Europe's 'The Final Countdown' and Queen's 'One Vision' or simply kicking the Beatles to death, with a reworking of the entire 'Let it Be' album.

But the expanding, consuming war in what was Yugoslavia seemed to mark the natural end of the band. They had been proven right; during a mid-90s tour, the group were handed an open letter from the Slovenian state media - "are you happy now?". They had got what they seemed to want. 1994's 'NATO' was a triumphant 'told-you-so', after which the band released the disappointing 'Jesus Christ Superstars', a half-hearted attack on organised religion which trod old ground to little effect. Laibach - the German name for their country's capital - then had to stand by and watch as East Germany's Rammstein took the group's sound and iconography, added pop hooks, and made lots of coin.

Now Laibach are revitalised, rather like vultures, having fed on death, for this is the group's post-9/11, war on terror album. In contrast to Bruce Springsteen's 'The Rising', for example, 'WAT' revels in telling us that we are all doomed, that das grosse spiel is very much aus. Rather like AC/DC or Enya, 'WAT' does not see a radical shift in the group's style. The blippy mid-tempo techno is back, Milan Fras' uniquely gravelly monotone is there, the lyrics work best when you can't understand them, there are orchestral flourishes, and the goth lady vocalists of Germania are back. 'Jesus Christ Superstars' was a muddy mess of metal guitars, similar to the group's earlier anarchic style but without the atmosphere, the danger.

In that respect 'WAT' is a return to form, although it is no masterpiece. 'The Great Divide' and 'Satanic Versus' - a pun - are indistinguishable mid-tempo declamations of the 'blood=oil' / 'america is quite scary' variety, which are liable to get them booed off stage in Alabama but nowhere else. Laibach's military uniforms and marching tempos were shocking in themselves, once, but nowadays one suspects that the group could only cause outrage by recording an absurdly pro-war album recorded with absolute conviction, and 'WAT' is not it. The orchestral flourishes of 'Now You Will Pay' cross the border into the land of camp, spoiling an otherwise superb song, whilst the opening and closing tracks, 'B Mashina' and 'Anti-Semitism', indulge the group's taste for gothic orchestral soundtracks and although the former starts to take off in the last thirty seconds, you will listen to them once apiece.

However, the rest is some of the best work the group have done for a decade. On 'Tanz Mit Laibach' and 'Das Speil ist Aus', the group sound exactly like Rammstein with a bassier vocalist, or DAF with thicker production, but that's hardly the fault of Laibach. They successfully fuse Wanger and techno, mirroring the genuinely brilliant cover of DAF's 'Alle Gegen Alle' that enlivens their live shows.

It isn't all sturm and drang, though, there is subtler malignancy elsewhere. 'Du Bist Unser' ('You are Ours') and 'Hell: Symmetry' are twisted ballads, as far as Teutonic EBM can assume a ballad form. The fin de seicle title track - 'We Are Time', giving lie to the supposition that 'WAT' stood for 'War Against Terrorism' - is the group's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues', but at half the speed, whilst 'Ende' is the audio equivalent of being smothered in a black cloack and taunted by the Devil. Laibach are most definitely on the right track again; all they need is a harder heart and a sharper scalpel.

Humanoid: "Sessions 84-88"

'Humanoid' was an early alter-ego of Brian Dougans, who later found fame as half of Future Sound of London - judging by 'Sessions', he was the abrasive half responsible for 'We Have Explosive', rather than the ambient half. His earlier work is almost forgotten nowadays, with the exception of the classic techno rave stomper 'Stakker Humanoid', which melded samples from the old arcade game 'Berzerk' with some thumping beats.

Evidently Richard James of Rephlex has a soft spot for Dougans' early work, what with parallel releases for 'Sessions, 1984-1988' and 'Eurotechno', the soundtrack to a contemporaneous rave video utilising a mix of music from 'Sessions' and elsewhere (also recently re-released on Rephlex). 'Sessions' is an overview of Dougans' career, and includes a remix of 'Stakker Humanoid' to bring in the punters, tidied-up and with an added strings part. Those expecting the rest of the album to be a series of 'Stakker' clones will be disappointed, as Dougans possessed an experimental bent; those looking for something genuinely ahead of its time will be intrigued.

The record divides into two distinct periods - 1984-1987, and 1988. The most modern stuff is the most variable; for the most part - 'Motion Static', 'Cry Baby', Humanoid's other classic single - it's superior, complex, slightly anonymous acid house, but there are some failures such as 'Positive Electron' and 'EPROM contact' which are deadly dull and feature wobbly vocals. There's an endearing home-made quality to it all, a reminder that the technology used to create acid - which now fetches ludicrous prices on the second hand market - was chosen because it was cheap, and nobody else wanted it. Dougans himself only adopted the 303 sound after stumbling across an unwanted unit in the back of his university's music department.

The meat, however, comprises Brian's pre-1988 music, recorded under the name Zeebox. It bears no similarity to his acid output, sounding frighteningly like Warp's early 'electronic listening music' releases - The Black Dog's 'Bytes' and the cast of the 'Artificial Intelligence' compilations in particular - almost a decade before the fact. Whilst the acid stuff sounds of its time, this section of the album is timeless, hard to reconcile with the Reagan era. Of the four tracks from 1984, three are dark electronic sketches, some less than ten seconds long. 'Nano Plura', the meat, is closer to the grim electronic experimentalism of Clock DVA or Throbbing Gristle than Phuture. The sole track from 1987 could equally be an out-take from Faust's 'The Faust Tapes', the Human League's 'Dignity of Labour' EP, or the last Aphex Twin album.

Rave on.

Red Talk

Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her are Aiha Higurashi and various friends who have helped her over the years, currently Nao Koyama on bass. (Fans of XTC will recognise the name - if nothing else - taken from a track on their mid-80s album Big Express). Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her- hereafter referred to as SSKHKH - sing in English and have been a cult in Japan since 1993, where they have released six albums and a dozen EPs. The group are unknown in the UK, hence Red Talk, which, although the packaging doesn't say, is a representative selection of their oeuvre.

Listening to Red Talk is a bit like exploring a parallel version of the 1990s, one in which the earnest, feminine, side of Britpop defeated the lairy laddism that prevailed in the UK. Although SSKHKH come from a land characterised in the UK by shrieking bubblegum pop, kitsch, and avant garde noise wars, the Seagulls are closer to Elastica or Hole than Cornelius or the Pizzicato Five. In fact, there's nothing obviously Japanese about them, which causes problems for reviewers trying to slot musicians into regional holes. Only the single Sister Sister fits the stereotype; sounding like the Tom Tom Club fronted by Maki Nomiya. It's a gorgeous thing, though - little more than a drum loop, a beepy melody and a simple chant of 'I pray / you pray'.

The musical range is more diverse than the aforementioned britpoppers, though; apart from the minimal j-pop of Sister Sister, As Long as We're Together is the absolute spit of Lou Reed, Grapefruit could be an ironic 'rock' cover of a TLC song, whilst the melody from Mo' Mo' Gimi' Mo' sounds like a sped-up Mull of Kintyre, although I don't think this is a conscious reference to Paul McCartney's masterwork. Although SSKHKH's music is generally loud and fast, If I Happen to Fall Down (In Your Arms) is as attractive an acoustic ballad as any. Listened to in chronological order it's impossible to detect a logical progression; the group adopt styles at random, without a plan.

Inevitably for a band with such a preponderance of wombs the lyrics are mostly about relationships, and also shooting men dead with shotguns, but in a charming way. A Guitar for me and Milk for her and Pretty in Pink deal with Aiha's recent motherhood, whilst Angel ('I wanna be your girlfriend / I wanna be your whore / in hell and heaven') and Asking for it ('You can give me some money') display the most obvious feminist slant. Having said that, the group place pogoing higher on their list of priorities than striking a blow for their gender; Count Zero Number One, Chik Chik A.A., 8 and A Shotgun and Me consist of short, enigmatic phrases repeated for the length of the song. Although the group don't sing in their native language, it's not really noticeable.

Ultimately SSKHKH are refreshing; a Japanese rock group whose selling point isn't their Japanese-ness. Whilst they won't usurp the White Stripes or the Strokes as the great new hope of guitar-based rock music - their one failing is a lack of a hummable tunes, and female-fronted rock bands are so mid-90s, dahlink - they are unlike to remain unknown for very long.