DEUTSCH AMERIKANISCHE FREUNDSCHAFT RELEASE 'DAS IST DAF' BOXSET

Grönland Records are once again releasing the dark militarised intensity of Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft onto the world with the release of DAS IST DAF, a boxset containing four album released between 1980 and 1982: Die kleinen und die Bösen Alles ist Gut, Gold und Liebe and Für immer.

They are the pioneers of EBM and the forefathers of electropunk. Yet they only laugh coolly and remain tight-lipped in the face of any attempt to historicize them. Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft – better known as DAF – is a myth.

What we know is that the albums the band released changed the history of music worldwide. Yet DAF’s international renown certainly was not based in the name: Gabi Delgado-López and Robert Görl were never looking for friendship; their expressions were invariably ones of steely, piercing stares, and they presented themselves with a precisely staged iciness that belied the ardor burning inside them.

In the early 1980s the records in the DAF, DAS IST DAF box set quickly made this duo the international figureheads of the music everyone now associates with the Rhine region: DAF, along with Kraftwerk and Can, were the pioneers of German electronic music. They were always in vogue. Sequencers, synthesizers, commanding drum beats and the most cutting staccato spoken-word vocals – an alliteration only disrupted by the notion of the uniform. Very few bands have managed to contrive their own look in such masterly fashion, and to even make it a subject of their work: “Was ziehst du an heut nacht?,” “Verehrt euren Haarschnitt” and – oh yes – “Tanz den Mussolini.”

DAF - Als wär's das letzte Mal (Boys Noize Remix) - Official Video

DAF - Der Mussolini (Giorgio Moroder & Denis Naidanow Remix) (official video)

DAF - SATO SATO (WESTBAM/ML Remix) Official Video