Slovenian band Laibach release North Korean cover

Slovenian experimental group Laibach have released a new music video, giving fans a chance to hear their version of a North Korean hit.

The track is a cover of We will go to Mount Paektu, one of the most popular songs of the year in North Korea by all-female music group Moranbong.

The video was made in advance of Laibach’s upcoming trip to perform in North Korea. It was directed by Morten Traavik, who also organised the concerts and is one of the few western directors to have carried out creative projects in the closed state.

The band will play on 19 and 20 August in the North Korean capital Pyongyang, as part of their Liberation Day tour. The tour coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Korean peninsula’s liberation from Japanese rule, and will be filmed for a documentary to be released in 2016.

Laibach, whose name is the German name for the Slovenian capital Ljubljana, formed in Yugoslavia in 1980 as the musical wing of the Neue Slowenische Kunst art collective. They are seen by many as provocative due to their ambiguous use of nationalist symbols, military costume and often martial nature of their music.

The original We will go to Mount Paektu by Moranbong