09/05/25
Laibach and A/Political present Alamut - a brand-new album of original symphonic work based on the novel of the same name - released on double vinyl and CD box set via Mute.
The album was recorded by Laibach and the musicians who performed Alamut live at a former Crusader castle in Ljubljana in 2022. The musicians involved include the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, the Human-Voice Ensemble vocal group from Tehran, the Gallina Women’s Choir, and AccordiOna, a women’s accordion orchestra backed by additional accordion players, conducted by Iranian conductor Navid Goharib.
Alamut is an original symphonic work by Laibach based on a famous story from eleventh-century Persia, as told by the Slovene writer Vladimir Bartol in his novel of the same title published in 1938. The central character is Hassan-i Sabbāh, the charismatic religious and political leader of the Nizari Ismailis and the founder of a mysterious military formation known as the Assassins, whose name is still feared and respected today. Hassan-i Sabbāh is a self-proclaimed prophet who leads a holy war against the Seljuk Empire from his eyrie – the castle of Alamut. Alamut looked at mechanisms of propaganda at the time when Bartol, a Slovenian author, witnessed the rise of Fascism in Trieste, Italy, where he lived.
In Laibach’s Alamut, the ideas of radical nihilism interweave with the classical Persian poetry of Omar Khayyam, the sensual verses of Mahsati Ganjavi blend with minimalist orchestral colours derived from Iranian tradition. Hassan-i Sabbāh’s propaganda mechanisms are echoed in the industrial principle of the workings of the orchestra and Laibach’s unique sound.