DAF – Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft – London Live Date – 20 March 2011
aaamusic | On 13, Jan 2011
Düsseldorf’s DAF have confirmed a London live date at Islington Academy on 20 March 2011, their first since 2009’s tour that saw the classic line up of Robert Görl & Gabi Delgado-Lopez united, 30 years after the release of their debut album, ‘Ein Produkt der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft’ (reissued in 2000 on The Grey Area of Mute).
DAF’s 1980 album, ‘Die Kleinen Und Die Bösen’, Mute’s first ever album release, featured Robert Görl, Gabi Delgado-Lopez, Chrislo Haas and Wolfgang Spelmans. Following the departure of Haas and Spelmans, the core members of drummer, composer and programmer Robert Görl, and vocalist, lyricist and strategist Gabi Delgado-Lopez continued as a duo and signed to Virgin. It was at this time that DAF released their 3 most commercially successful albums within an 18 month period, ‘Alles Ist Gut’, ‘Gold Und Liebe’ and ‘Für Immer’. Though operative for only a short time, the DAF sex machine was extraordinarily productive and its impact on electronic music is deep and lasting. In a whirlwind 18 months they released this trilogy of best selling albums whilst pushing the boundaries of experimental and dance music. Robert Görl and Gabi Delgado-Lopez briefly got back together in 1985 for ‘1st Step to Heaven’ and again in 2003 for ‘Fünfzehn neue D.A.F-Lieder’.
While British electronic pop pioneers were still mired in alienation or camp futurism, DAF presciently combined disco and electronics in a new, distinctive variant of the Electro scene which was then current in groundbreaking New York clubs. Either leathered up or stripped to the waist and glistening with sweat, DAF looked as they sounded, all pumping muscle and sinew, the very physicality of their music upturning the then current cliché that equated electronics and alienation. DAF were the precursors of the Electronic Body Musics of Die Krupps and Nitzer Ebb, while their musical reductionism gave Techno minimalists the courage to pare music back to beats and atmospheres.
‘Ein Produkt der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft’, ‘Die Kleinen Und Die Bösen’, ‘Alles Ist Gut’, ‘Gold Und Liebe’, ‘Für Immer’, ‘DAS BESTE VON DAF – 20 Lieder der Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft’ are available now on The Grey Area of Mute.
DAF 2011 DATES
10.03.2011 D-Berlin, K17 (+ Psyche)
11.03.2011 D-Hannover, Musikzentrum (+ Psyche & Transmitter)
12.03.2011 D-Ludwigsburg, Paradox (+ Psyche & Deine Jugend)
14.05.2011 SK-Bratislava, Majestic Music Club
04.09.2011 D-Leipzig-Deutzen, Nocturnal Culture Night 2011 (Open Air)
