Today, Laibach have announced details of “Strange Fruit”, three track single release that follows their recent single “The Future.” This unique interpretation of the haunting protest song has been featured in Laibach‘s ongoing Opus Dei Tour and precedes the band’s Opus Dei Revisited double album that will be out on December 13, on Mute.
Billie Holiday recorded her version of “Strange Fruit” on April 20, 1939. The track, originally written by Jewish school teacher Abel Meeropol, was in response to lynching in U.S. southern states. A year later, Meeropol, a socialist, was called to testify before a committee investigating communism and asked whether the U.S. Communist Party had paid him to write “Strange Fruit.” Later in 1999, the ditty was named the song of the century by Time Magazine.
While talking about the song, Laibach said: “There’s something that’s still very radioactive about the song; it’s still relevant because race is still relevant. The impulses that Meeropol was talking about are very much still with us, on the front pages of our newspapers and across our social media every day. For us, ‘Strange Fruit’ evokes racial injustice, representing not just lynchings, but racism generally.”
The band adds: “Racism is a virus that mutates, taking on different forms as it adapts to a changing environment. Its mutation is made harder to observe by it being deeply embedded, not only in our traditions and institutions, but also in our unconscious lives.”
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