INVOLUCIJA is envisioned as a collective to channel fragments of the creative ex-Yugoslavian spirit. The first two releases from Michel Morin and Lucija Invo – Crna Formula EP and tiha povest involucije 2×12″ – were followed by collaborations with Jasmin Mahmić (Le Chocolat Noir), Saša Rajković (Zarkoff), and Lidija Andonov (Sixth June).
KEYI MAGAZINE: INVOLUCIJA INTERVIEW
[from the autumn 2025 issue of KEYI Magazine]
INVOLUCIJA is an experimental dancefloor collaboration with artists from ex-Yugoslavian countries started by Michel Morin and Lucija Invo. We had the pleasure to delve deeper into the story of their creation and took photos in a unique dead forest that captures the ‘involution’ vibe.
Their bizarre alloy of techno/post-punk/goth/industrial interwoven with Bosnian musical traditions is the core of a conceptual assault they name “Balkan Body Music” – a euphoric call to unite all people whose worlds have become splintered.
1. Hey you both! How are you?
We’ve been urgently reflecting on a burning question: When the world goes crazy, what can we do to help others?
We keep circling back to the transcendent role that music+art plays in bringing us humans together, lifting our burdens and inspiring resolve to carry on. If we’re living in a time where division and fear are the primary seeds of discord, music+art is the unparalleled ritual to break down walls between us and foster community. In a nutshell, this is the whole concept of INVOLUCIJA, the Serbo-Croatian word for “involution”.
2. Please explain to us how you came up with the name of your project.
LUCIJA: The word first appeared to me in a dream where I was reading an imaginary book in Serbo-Croatian entitled “Tiha povest involucije” (The Quiet History of Involution). It has various mathematical, medical and philosophical meanings, but the specific definition we had in mind later became wildly popular in China. Wikipedia says:
“Neijuan (内卷); lit. ‘to roll inwards’ is an English loanword of the Chinese word for involution. Neijuan reflects a life of being overworked, stressed, anxious and feeling trapped, a lifestyle where many face the negative effects of living a very competitive life for nothing.”
Simply put, INVOLUCIJA is about drawing uncomfortable attention to this quagmire in an attempt to crush it – and transcend it. It’s the same spirit of provocation from the first wave of industrial music; Throbbing Gristle called it “entertainment through pain”.
We call it euphoric deprogramming.
3. What’s the unique story you both share?
MICHEL: What brought us together and keeps us solid is our passion for music+art. Lucija and I first met in 2006 during a gig at a club in Banja Luka, Bosnia. It was love at first sight and has been ever since <3
The backdrop of our connection is ex-Yugoslavia, a beautiful fever dream of unlimited potential that was shattered by a brutal war and scattered into several separate countries.
Despite its relatively small size and remote Eastern location, Yugoslavia punched far above its weight with its New Wave, industrial, punk and electro-pop music scenes, not to mention its avant-garde cinema and art. As the champion of the Non-Aligned Movement which rejected both the West and the Soviet Union, its citizens enjoyed freedoms that were the envy of every Eastern Bloc country and solidified its creative legacy.
But as they now say, it’s been balkanized.
I recall how Lucija was caught off guard when she heard that word for the very first time – from me, a Canadian, no less. This is what her home, the Balkans, had been reduced to: a cruel and cold adjective used by Westerners in far away countries.
As I toured through the Balkans from 2006-2016 under my previous monikers, I too began to feel a tragic loss of something very unique. We vowed to do something about it someday.
4. How did the idea for it start?
MICHEL: By 2018 I was restless from previous projects but still hungry to take my earlier EBM forays into some completely unexplored territory. But where? I was at a loss.
In a fit of genius, Lucija proposed the concept of reviving the Yugoslavian spirit: make music together with artists from ex-Yugoslavian countries, write lyrics in Serbo-Croatian, and consolidate it by marrying EBM, techno and goth. In other words, reunite what was lost and create something completely new.
Lucija brought her adoration of Front 242, Sisters of Mercy and Ancient Methods. I brought along Sonic Youth, Ministry, Drive Like Jehu & Big Black. A lot of time was spent researching traditional Bosnian musical history and scales – and from there we explored a new space of possibility. Call it an ongoing experiment, a loud provocation to wake people up from the post-industrial wasteland of stale genres chasing their tails.
On the art side, we’ve taken tens of thousands of photos during our tours through ex-Yugoslavia. This collection has become an amazing documentary and resource for all of our album artwork and visual component of our forthcoming De-balkanize Manifesto.
5. Tell us more about this manifesto.
Thanks for indulging us. Everyone loves a good manifesto, right? RIGHT? Haha. This one addresses the challenges we face in reconciling divisions, rejecting fear and permitting ourselves joy:
Challenge #1 is seeking empowerment amidst chaos; to shake this dreadful feeling of becoming overpowered by world events that seem completely out of our control, from pandemics to politics to pollution.
Speaking of which, on the day of this photo shoot with KEYI there was a massive fish die-off here spanning 300 km of waterways due to industrial dumping of salt which caused a massive poisonous algae bloom. At that very moment amongst the already post-apocalyptic brackish waters and ghostly trees we were completely surrounded by a toxic spill. Quite disturbing, frankly.
Yet in the greater surrounding landscape, there was still an undeniably dignified and beautiful forest – a reminder that hardships can and must be endured. We were witnesses to both this calamity and to the resilience of nature; we ingested the scene and wanted to convey this brazen contradiction, perhaps as a reminder that the world has many conflicting layers. The romantic sensibility of accepting discrepancies, recognizing nuance and responding to tragedy with optimistic hope is the hallmark of metamodernist thinking. The heart of this message is to reject being cornered into fear-fueled catastrophizing due to reductionist black & white perspectives.
Whether creating or receiving music+art, empowerment comes every time the experience lends us enough courage and inspiration to process calamities without losing the sight of grace.
Challenge #2 (which may be the hardest) is civility; to not turn away from each other, to continually seek dialogue with one another in spite of disagreements and differences in needs and perceptions. Again and again the default seems to be that the more we conceive of ‘your people’ as bad, wrong, undesirable, etc., the more ‘my people’ get stronger. A classic case of us vs. them.
If music+art has the power to evoke shared experiences, it can help us grasp that our personal well-being doesn’t have to come at the expense of anyone else. Consider a form of radical stewardship, where care and compassion isn’t just an activity restricted to friends, family or nation, but to any fellow human. Philosophical exercises like the Prisoner’s Dilemma and Game Theory reveal that unity is a daunting task but it also offers greater combined benefits for the group as a whole.
The dancefloor is a great example of this, where all peoples can come together to engage in creative self-expression, where you can just let go of yourself in exchange for becoming one with others through shared movement. This is a potent power equalizer that’s palpable and poignant, especially when we recall every time a culture, religion, regime or government bans dancing for …reasons. The success of “dance activism” during the American civil rights movement is a shining example of the transcendent power of music+art.
Which brings us to Challenge #3: Euphoria. Of all the most powerful human experiences, this one seems to have the most restrictive conditions laid upon it, like the aforementioned bans on dancing. Whether you call it unrestrained pleasure, jouissance, or unbridled joy, it is inevitably a primary target of societal control and labelled as taboo/sin. It’s as if euphoria could shake the very foundations of the earth if it weren’t subject to such arbitrary sanctions – perhaps because the power of shared joy is too much for any apparatus of oppression.
As such, the experience of euphoria is paradoxically both deeply personal and universally collective. We vividly recall the very first time our child exploded with laughter, her tiny 3-month old face turning beet red during the euphoric fit. Michel was doing his best to imitate an angry sputtering baboon and the three of us were rolling in unrestrained bliss, literally crying from the ridiculous provocation. It was an expression of joyful madness that left a deep impression: namely, when a child joins humanity while it first succumbs to a mutual exultation.You could say a blueprint to unchain euphoria is to just let music+art resonate with our discomfort to the point we can no longer repress it. It allows us to transcend and overcome our discomfort; it helps let us feel joy without shame or guilt, especially when shared with others.
6. …. We know that one of you – Michel Morin was involved in Polygamy Boys – an iconic electro-clash duo where the releases came out via David Carretta’s – Space Factory, David Vunk’s Moustache Records, Bunker Records, Crème Organization or GoodLife, which was founded by Alex Reynaud, Oxia and The Hacker in Grenoble, France. Congrats on this successful project! Can we expect some reactivation of the duet or do you plan to focus solely on Involucija?
MICHEL: Those were wild times – and boy did I ever hate being lumped in with electroclash scene LOL. Many of the artists on the labels with my releases were either ambivalent about it or flat-out rejected it as some kind of cynical cash-in. However we all profited from the hype; so yeah, it was ironic and hypocritical. In retrospect, if the genre was vague then, let me tell you 20 years later it’s an even bigger mystery to me what people nowadays consider to be electroclash. As for Polygamy Boys, Stephan Busche and I have spoken about resuming recording at some point when our schedules match up.
7. Looking at your releases, you’ve had two via aufnahme + wiedergabe and another is one the way this fall.
The first INVOLUCIJA release was a digital EP, “Crna Formula”, followed by a 12” split-label collaboration between aufnahme+wiedergabe and ours featuring Le Chocolat Noir on vocals. For our brand new 12” LP we recruited vocalist & poet Zarkoff from Sumerian Fleet to deliver razor-sharp justice. We aim to resonate precisely with the frequency of your discomfort, cathartic goosebumps guaranteed.
8. … and started to release via your label under the name INVOLUCIJA.ORG where you distribute via Bordello a Parigi. Do you plan to continue to keep it for your own releases or are you open for some artists in the future too?
Our label is dedicated solely to INVOLUCIJA-related projects. We have so many different artists from ex-Yugoslavian countries that it’s going to be a lifetime endeavour.
… and started to release via your label under the name INVOLUCIJA.ORG where you distribute via Bordello a Parigi. Do you plan to continue to keep it for your own releases or are you open for some artists in the future too?
Our label is dedicated solely to INVOLUCIJA-related projects. We have so many different artists from ex-Yugoslavian countries that it’s going to be a lifetime endeavour.
9. Besides music production, you are known for industrial hard-hitting live performances. What’s the key point of the preparation? What’s the secret of your set up? 🙂 Is it solely based on tracks you produce or do you go wild sometimes?
MICHEL: In 2006 I designed, built and programmed my first pattern sequencer for live performance after getting frustrated with all of the commercial offerings. This machine was connected to a tiny PC running NI Kontakt with 10gb of my own samples. When we started INVOLUCIJA in 2019, I created a whole new setup starting with Ableton Live and a LIVID Instruments CNTRL:R midi controller.
All of this with a huge twist I might add, as I find Ableton’s default interface terribly frustrating.
I heavily modded the CNTRL:R with a NI Traktor Audio 2 audio interface and USB hub installed inside. On the front there’s a whole monitoring/cue/x-fader section that’s been bolted on. The custom built PC (Ryzen 7) is running Ableton Live, albeit with a completely custom Max4Live UI and pattern sequencer: I programmed it to sequence 3 separate songs with up to 16 sections, each with 4 stems. Anything and everything can be mixed and layered in any order – instantly. It gives me total improvisational freedom which definitely lets me go wild – if the dancefloor is feeling it.
10. What’s your memory of a show which you wished could be repeated?
MICHEL: The very first INVOLUCIJA performance was in July 2021 at an aufnahme+wiedergabe event in Suicide Club, Berlin. I was nervous as hell, not only because it was the first time I was presenting this material but also because it was the first lull during the pandemic when clubs briefly reopened. Picture 800 people going absolutely apeshit and dancing together for the first time in over a year and a half of lockdowns. It was a moment of pure euphoria.
11. How do you balance your private life with your work?
Raising our 9-year old daughter is an honour and a privilege that takes immense patience and energy. Trying to simultaneously run a label and have a music career in our spare time feels like a massive but worthwhile struggle. I can’t really figure out how but we somehow manage!
12. What can we expect next?
MICHEL: We just finished recording a mind bending and noisy post-punk LP with Lidija Andonov from Sixth June, there’s an EP with Popsimonova under way and a long list of upcoming collaborations. Lucija is currently overseeing the production of a ‘hypnomania-style’ LP as she calls it. And I think I’ll finally have time to finish my gestural midi controller live performance glove. The original was called “Sneaky-Gestures”. Look it up on YouTube 😉
We’d like to end with a quote from Umberto Eco that resonates with our project and speaks to current quagmires: “we immediately understood the moral and psychological meaning of the Resistance. For us it was a point of pride to know that we Europeans did not wait passively for liberation.”