D.A.F. | |
|---|---|
 D.A.F. (Delgado-López left, Görl right) | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Düsseldorf,West Germany |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1978–2021 |
| Labels | |
| Spinoffs |
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| Past members |
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Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft (German pronunciation:[ˈdɔʏtʃʔameʁiˈkaːnɪʃəˈfʁɔʏntʃaft]; "German-American Friendship"), orD.A.F., was a Germanelectropunk/Neue Deutsche Welle band fromDüsseldorf, formed in 1978 featuringGabriel "Gabi" Delgado-López (vocals),Robert Görl (drums, percussion, electronic instruments),Kurt "Pyrolator" Dahlke (electronic instruments), Michael Kemner (bass-guitar) and Wolfgang Spelmans (guitar). Kurt Dahlke was replaced byChrislo Haas (electronic instruments, bass guitar, saxophone) in 1979. Since 1981, the band has consisted of Delgado-López and Görl. Gabi Delgado-Lopez died on 22 March 2020 aged 61.[6]
In interviews they claimed not to target anything or anyone specific while writing lyrics to be taken as a parody of words and phrases floating around in the public media. "Sato-Sato" and "Der Mussolini" are both examples of songs written around Delgado-López's fascination with the sound of a particular word. A few months before the2003 invasion of Iraq, D.A.F. released "The Sheriff (An Anti-American Song)".
The albumAlles ist gut (all is good) received the German "Schallplattenpreis" award by the "Deutsche Phono-Akademie" (The German Phono-Academy), an association of the German recording industry.
Görl came to Düsseldorf in August 1978 and met Delgado as both were regulars at punk club Ratinger Hof. Görl noted, "The earliest line up of DAF was Gabi and me in the basement of the Ratinger Hof. We created our basic ideas and we had a very strong will as a duo. Gabi Delgado played thestylophone and I played the drums." Several early Neue Deutsche Welle bands formed from this social group, and Görl and Delgado played with multiple other bands.[7] The first two D.A.F. albums featured the original four-piece line-up and a range of styles. Their first album,Ein Produkt der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft, was released in 1979 on Dahlke's Ata Tak label (then called Warning). The album was 22 improvised untitled instrumentals, Delgado having temporarily left the band at the time.
The band then moved toLondon. As Delgado later noted, "at that time if you wanted to do new music you’d go to London because that was the center, not Düsseldorf."[8] Daniel Miller signed DAF toMute Records because "they weren’t relying on past rock traditions at all, which is the criterion of what goes on Mute."[9] DAF recordedDie Kleinen und die Bösen (The Small Ones and the Evil Ones) for Mute, one side studio and most of the other side live. According to the Trouser Press,Ein Produkt... featured "shrieking, colliding overdubbed synths and guitars" whileDie Kleinen... presented a more polished sound "with anarchic synthesizer work slowly integrating a solid, defined beat."[5]
DAF then shrank to just Delgado and Görl, who signed toVirgin Records and releasedAlles ist gut, their breakthrough album. The band became pop stars in Germany and gained great critical acclaim in the UK.
Görl played drums — usually fairly simple and relativelyunsyncopated patterns, but with simple variations that prevented them sounding robotic — while Delgado sang. The only other instruments used were Korg MS-20 and ARP Odysseyanalogue synthesizers usually driven by a Korg SQ-10analog sequencer. Typically only a single sequencer-driven line would be used for a song, the sequence functioning both as melodic accompaniment and as a bassline. The song "Der Mussolini" is a perfect example of this. On other songs, such as the title track, certain notes of the sequence were set slightly out of tune. Over all, the songs entail a complex tension between the predominantly visceral (the voice), the relentlessly robotic (the 16-step sequences), and the drums, which lie somewhere in between. One song, "Der Räuber und der Prinz" ("The Robber and the Prince"), also features aGlockenspiel-like sound as a sinister reminder of childhood.[citation needed]
Alles ist gut sold hundreds of thousands in Germany, and DAF became the fifth-biggestGerman-speaking group in Germany.[9]
The next two albums,Gold und Liebe (Gold and Love) andFür Immer (Forever), continued in the same vein, until, as one British music journalist of the time put it,[citation needed] D.A.F. had exhausted all the possibilities of the 16-step sequencer. These possibilities ranged from something resemblingrhythm and blues — you could just about play Der Mussolini as R'n'B if you wanted — to themicrotonality ofIm Dschungel der Liebe (In the Jungle of Love) (onFür immer) orKnochen auf Knochen (the B-side of the single "Sex unter Wasser"). These three albums (fromAlles ist gut toFür immer) were all produced byKonrad "Conny" Plank, who was renowned for his pioneering work both with minimalist-influencedKrautrock bands and other experimenters in the 1970s, and withelectropop artists in the 1980s. The band added an Oberheim OB-Xa forFür immer.
The band split during the recording ofFür immer.
Each member released solo albums: DelgadoMistress (on Virgin), and GörlNight Full Of Tension (on Mute).
Delgado and Görl reunited in 1985 to record1st Step to Heaven, their only album in English, which achieved one week in the Swedish album chart at no. 46.[10] Delgado later noted: "So we wanted to break our own rules and said: OK, so now we sing in English, now we don’t wear black.(laughing) With purpose. Because we wanted to break our own rules."[8]
During this extensive period their historical importance began to become clearer. Legendary radio DJJohn Peel went as far as to call them theGrandfathers ofTechno. Both Robert and Gabi had solo musical careers, with Robert becoming a respected techno artist in his own right. Gabi Delgado also recorded two albums asDAF/DOS ('Dos' here referring to the Spanish word for 'two') together withWotan Wilke.
When DAF reformed for the 2003 albumFünfzehn neue D.A.F.-Lieder (15 New D.A.F Songs) their style had shifted to a fusion of the classicPlank-produced D.A.F. sound with elements taken from Robert's techno work. The drums were replaced with crisper electronic beats, but theARP Avatar and, of course, Gabi's vocals remained in place. According to Deutsche Welle, the album "takes specific aim at American cultural imperialism and political dominance" as evidenced by the first single, "Der Sheriff", a song about the George W. Bush administration.[11] "Der Sheriff" peaked at number 2 on the German Alternative Charts (DAC) and ranked number 15 on the DAC Top 100 Singles of 2003.[12]
The band prepared more music, but split before they could make another album. Görl played in 2007 as DAF.Partei with Thoralf Dietrich (from Jäger 90) as lead singer.[13]
Delgado-Lopez and Görl have played occasional reunion shows since their thirtieth anniversary tour in 2008. In 2010, the band returned with a new single "Du bist DAF", limited to 2010 copies.[14] The sound snippet is available viaSoundCloud.[15]
The band declared its split again in January 2015, with another farewell tour to start in May.[16]
An authorised biography of the band, "Das ist DAF", written by Miriam Spies and Rudi Esch, was published in 2017. There is no English translation of the text available at present. According to the publisher's page, "This richly illustrated book tells the unique DAF story from the perspective ofGabi Delgado andRobert Görl", both of whom as DAF are "regarded as a forerunner of thetechno andEBM scene."
Delgado died in 2020. Görl released one last album as DAF,Nur Noch Einer in 2021, based on old DAF tapes and with new lyrics by Görl.
The D.A.F. track "Alle Gegen Alle" was remade byLaibach in 1994. "Der Mussolini" was remade byAtrocity in 1997 and byKMFDM in 2006. Patrik Sampler's 2017 novelThe Ocean Container[17] makes reference to "Greif Nach Den Sternen".
Görl described their sound onAlles ist gut inMelody Maker in 1981:[18]
Delgado described his new vocal style in the same interview:
The band determined early on that they would not sing in English. As Delgado later said:[8]
As a lyricist, Delgado's concerns throughout D.A.F.'s recording career have ranged from sardonic reflections on ideology and political violence, to journeys into a very physical, even brutal, sexuality, sometimes related from a child's point of view. Having grown up as the child of working class Spanish immigrants inWuppertal, and coming of age in the politically polarized era of theGerman Autumn (his response to the left-wing extremism of that time being thematized in the 2003 song "Kinderzimmer (Heldenlied)" ["Childhood Bedroom (Hero Song)"], he was blunt and unromantically detached about social reality in West Germany, and unapologetic about the provocative potential of his songs.
As performers and media personalities D.A.F. were, much like New York'sSuicide, forerunners of later 1980ssynthpop duos, such as thePet Shop Boys andSoft Cell, in that the singer (in this case Delgado) appears relativelyextroverted while the one who plays with the electronics (Görl) appears quiet and reserved. Visually, at least fromAlles ist gut until1st Step to Heaven, they cultivated an image of black leather, muscles, hairy chests, and sweat.[citation needed]
| Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | Notes | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GER [19] | AUS [20] | SWE [10] | |||||||
| Ein Produkt der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft | — | — | — |
| |||||
| Die Kleinen und die Bösen | — | — | — |
| |||||
| Alles ist gut | 15 | 16 | — | ||||||
| Gold und Liebe |
| 35 | 10 | — | |||||
| Für immer |
| — | — | — | |||||
| 1st Step to Heaven | — | — | 46 | — | |||||
| Fünfzehn neue D.A.F.-Lieder |
| 95 | — | — | — | ||||
| Nur Noch Einer |
| — | — | — | — | ||||
| "—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory. | |||||||||
| Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Album | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GER [19] | BEL (FL) [38] | ||||||||||||
| "Kebab-Träume" / "Gewalt" | 1980 | — | — | Non-album single | |||||||||
| "Als wär's das letzte Mal" / "Der Mussolini" | 1981 | — | — | Alles ist gut | |||||||||
| "Der Räuber und der Prinz" / "Tanz mit mir" | — | — | |||||||||||
| "Goldenes Spielzeug" | — | — | Gold und Liebe | ||||||||||
| "Liebe auf den ersten Blick" | — | — | |||||||||||
| "Sex unter Wasser" / "Knochen auf Knochen" | — | — | |||||||||||
| "Verlieb dich in mich" / "Ein bisschen Krieg" | 1982 | — | — | Für immer | |||||||||
| "Absolute Body Control" | 1985 | — | — | 1st Step to Heaven | |||||||||
| "Brothers" | — | 23 | |||||||||||
| "Pure Joy" | 1986 | — | — | ||||||||||
| "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi" | 47 | 17 | |||||||||||
| "The Gun" | 1987 | — | — | Hitz Blitz | |||||||||
| "Der Mussolini" (Remix) | — | — | Non-album single | ||||||||||
| "Liebe auf den ersten Blick '88 Remix" | 1988 | — | — | ||||||||||
| "Verschwende deine Jugend" / "El que" | 1989 | — | — | ||||||||||
| "Der Sheriff" (Anti-Amerikanisches Lied) | 2002 | — | — | Fünfzehn neue D.A.F.-Lieder | |||||||||
| "Du bist DAF" | 2010 | — | — | Non-album single | |||||||||
| "Der Mussolini" (Giorgio Moroder & Denis Naidanow Remix)" | 2017 | — | — | ||||||||||
| "Boys Noize / Görl & Hell Remix" | — | — | |||||||||||
| "Ich denk an dich" | 2020 | — | — | ||||||||||
| "—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory. | |||||||||||||
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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