D.A.F. = DOPE!

Discussion
1

Man I’ve totally been in the wilderness for 40yrs. If I had’ve discovered D.A.F back in the early 90s I would’ve gone absolutely bananas.
I can imagine the early Detroit Techno & Chicago House DJ/Producers going apeshit over these D.A.F. records back in 1981.
But here we are in 2016 so i’ll just go ape over them now and pretend I’m back in 92.

Being a fan of Ministry/Revco/Lard etc and in particular KMFDM in the early 90s I made it my job to find what I thought were great & obscure Industrial (Metal) records. Obviously I didn’t get too deep as far as obscure and dope goes…Ministry & KMFDM weren’t exactly that obscure although some of it was dope. And looking at the recent amazing Industrial/Post Punk comps by JD Twitch & Trevor Jackson I didn’t get that deep at all looking back. I blame the lack of internet at the time! haha

Although I still listen to Ministry every now and again I don’t listen to KMFDM at all now. KMFDM’s “in the prime” material doesn’t float my boat anymore unlike Ministrys. I had a listen to snippets of the new KMFDM stuff recently and it’s REALLY not my cup of tea now. They’ve not aged well and their early records haven’t either for me.

This D.A.F stuff though…I’ve checked out a few of the records from 80/81 and it’s crazy how fresh and insanely dope these guys were. I mean they absolutely blew Ministry’s early stuff and KMFDM clean out of the water. Listening to D.A.F. enlightened me with who it was that Ministry/KMFDM were trying to sound like.
As I mentioned…the early Techno/House/Industrial producers must had their jaws hit the ground hard when hearing this stuff for the first time back in the day.

So…who here has been sitting on this shit and not sharing?
Am I the only one who has discovered the awesomeness of these guys 36yrs late to the game? If so you can discover the awesomeness now too…and being 2016 most of the stuff has been remastered…not that that’s a good thing mind you…but to each their own.

https://www.discogs.com/artist/12830-Deutsch-Amerikanische-Freundschaft

1981’s Alles ist gut and also 81’s Gold Und Liebe are the best places to start.

2

DAF are great!
I had heard about them, but hadn’t heard them until about 12 years ago when I found “Produkt der Deutsche-Amerikanischen Freundschaft” at a CD store in Toronto. I listened to it on repeat on the plane, in airports, and on transit when I flew home.

Welcome back by the way! I always enjoy your posts because they are actually about music.

3

Nice one!

What year did that one come out?

We subscribed to AppleMusic recently so we now have access to everything on iTunes. I have just been listening to those two 1981 D.A.F. releases that I mentioned so far on a loop. I will check out the one you mentioned next.

I mentioned in my opening post that there has been some really great Industrial comps released recently which focused on the more obscure aspects of the strains of music. I will paste links to those comps should you be interested in checking them out.
One the comp curators is a guy called JD Twitch. He is one half of cult Glasgow Techno act Optimo. He is actually named after the Sherwood produced Ministry record which I think is awesome. In an interview I read he mentioned that Ministry’s Twitch LP had a profound musical impact on him…so as a tribute to it he made it an immortal part of his artistic output.
Most of my mates here in Scotland who love Optimo have no idea about the Ministry/Optimo connection. To be fair most of them have no idea who Ministry is haha

So Low - Various - JD Twitch
http://www.piccadillyrecords.com/counter/search.php?search=Various%20Artists%20-%20So%20Low%20(The%20Vinyl%20Factory)

Metal Dance - Industrial Post Punk EBM Classics & Rarities 80-88 - Various - Trevor Jackson
http://www.strut-records.com/trevorjackson-metaldance/

On-Sound Presents Sherwood At The Controls 79-84
http://www.juno.co.uk/products/sherwood-at-the-controls-volume-1/564119-01/

Trevor Jackson Presents On-U Sound Science Fiction Dancehall Classics
http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=18004

4

D.A.F. rules…always have…

5

Ok so it’s looking like maybe I am the ONLY one here who hadn’t cottoned onto D.A.F. back in the day.

6

DAF is so good, with Connie Plank producing they were the missing link between rad krautrock and industrial. Early Nitzer Ebb sounds a whole lot like DAF even more so than kmfdm, of course DAF is still the best.

Good to see you back here, it’s nice to talk music!

7

I have Produkt Der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft (1979) and Die Kleinen Und Die Bösen (1980). As I understand it from 1981 onwards they went for a way more minimal, dance music style that I’ve yet to really explore. I heard “Brothers” (1985) on a compilation and thought it was really cheesy, not nearly as good as the early records.

8

I think 1985 was a tough year in the cheese stakes regardless of who you were and what music you made haha

9

DAF rule.

From their Krautrock leaning early years, to lean stripped down funk. They did it all.

Pity they ruined it with their comebacks.

10

Some years ago I translated from German a book called “Verschwende Deine Jugend” (‘Throw Away Your Youth’) which was a history of German punk and new wave, D.A.F. figure very prominently in it.

I never got a taker for it (well, Feral House was briefly interested but I think scrapped the project because it was to be a DVD / book combo and maybe this was too expensive to realize - I’m not exactly sure).

So I basically have an “unofficial” / “fan” translation of it if anyone is interested in reading it.

It goes into great detail about things like D.A.F.'s ill-fated move to London (where they lived in total squalor and had their Korg MS-20 parked on top of the kitchen sink), and drummer Robert Goerl’s car accident in which he lost his arm, and soon after became a practicing Buddhist. They’ve had a more interesting history than the majority of their imitators, to be sure.

The track “Sato Sato” still gives me chills with its instructions for kamikaze pilots to “fight for the sun” and “habt keine Angst.”

11

Man I’ve totally been in the wilderness for 40yrs. If I had’ve discovered D.A.F back in the early 90s I would’ve gone absolutely bananas.
I can imagine the early Detroit Techno & Chicago House DJ/Producers going apeshit over these D.A.F. records back in 1981.

Probably the biggest connection between DAF and later techno, personnel-wise, was Chrislo Haas (R.I.P.). He participated in the group when they were in their sort of no-wave / jitter-funk phase before it was stripped down to the Goerl / Delgado duo. And after that he formed Liaisons Dangeureses whose early 1980s proto-techno STILL crops up in DJ setlists pretty regularly.

Also, for another interesting example of how things got from point A to point B, Palais Schaumburg is worth checking out. Both former P.S. members Thomas Fehlmann and Moritz von Oswald have had major impact on techno as we now know it, particularly the Berlin-Detroit interchange (amusingly, Palais Schaumburg also opened for Kurtis Blow in Germany back in the day.)

12

Haha that’s great.

One of my all-time favourite acts is Rhythm & Sound/Basic Channel. Their Burial Mix 10" releases were the cream of the crop for me. Atmospheric and stripped right back is the music for me. The 10" they cut with Cornell Campbell was the absolute cream of the crop.

Rhythm & Sound with Cornell Campbell - King Im My Empire
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=huFDk49GVm4

13

Some years ago I translated from German a book called “Verschwende Deine Jugend” (‘Throw Away Your Youth’) which was a history of German punk and new wave, D.A.F. figure very prominently in it.

I never got a taker for it (well, Feral House was briefly interested but I think scrapped the project because it was to be a DVD / book combo and maybe this was too expensive to realize - I’m not exactly sure).

So I basically have an “unofficial” / “fan” translation of it if anyone is interested in reading it.

It goes into great detail about things like D.A.F.'s ill-fated move to London (where they lived in total squalor and had their Korg MS-20 parked on top of the kitchen sink), and drummer Robert Goerl’s car accident in which he lost his arm, and soon after became a practicing Buddhist. They’ve had a more interesting history than the majority of their imitators, to be sure.

The track “Sato Sato” still gives me chills with its instructions for kamikaze pilots to “fight for the sun” and “habt keine Angst.”

This s all sounds wonderful mate. Count me in for wanting to read that.

14

Haha that’s great.

One of my all-time favourite acts is Rhythm & Sound/Basic Channel. Their Burial Mix 10" releases were the cream of the crop for me. Atmospheric and stripped right back is the music for me. The 10" they cut with Cornell Campbell was the absolute cream of the crop.

Rhythm & Sound with Cornell Campbell - King Im My Empire
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=huFDk49GVm4

Man, that’s one of my all-time favorite tracks to come out of the dub genre, just because of the way in which I was introduced to it.

I remember it was a nice spring day, and I fell asleep on a concrete slab somewhere in the courtyard that links together all the museums in Vienna’s “Museum Quarter”. I was in a kind of hypnagogic state when that song came on - I woke up and realized it was part of ‘consensus reality’ rather than a dream, and I immediately began trying to figure out where it was coming from.

I didn’t see any sound system set up anywhere, and kept looking for a set of speakers anywhere so I could go find who put the record on and ask who it was.

When the song ended, no other music came on after it, which was also strange.

I finally stumbled across the Rhythm & Sound compilation “The Versions” and have been spinning that ever since.

15

This s all sounds wonderful mate. Count me in for wanting to read that.

I’ll go track it down and give it a quick breeze-through to see if there’s no glaring mistakes in it (I haven’t looked at it in a few years!), keep an eye on your inbox and I’ll send it after that.

16

[reply]Haha that’s great.

One of my all-time favourite acts is Rhythm & Sound/Basic Channel. Their Burial Mix 10" releases were the cream of the crop for me. Atmospheric and stripped right back is the music for me. The 10" they cut with Cornell Campbell was the absolute cream of the crop.

Rhythm & Sound with Cornell Campbell - King Im My Empire
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=huFDk49GVm4

Man, that’s one of my all-time favorite tracks to come out of the dub genre, just because of the way in which I was introduced to it.

I remember it was a nice spring day, and I fell asleep on a concrete slab somewhere in the courtyard that links together all the museums in Vienna’s “Museum Quarter”. I was in a kind of hypnagogic state when that song came on - I woke up and realized it was part of ‘consensus reality’ rather than a dream, and I immediately began trying to figure out where it was coming from.

I didn’t see any sound system set up anywhere, and kept looking for a set of speakers anywhere so I could go find who put the record on and ask who it was.

When the song ended, no other music came on after it, which was also strange.

I finally stumbled across the Rhythm & Sound compilation “The Versions” and have been spinning that ever since.[/reply]

Yeah man it’s a beauty and it is hard to follow up such a wonderful tube when DJing haha

If you haven’t heard it yet you need to check out Deadbeat’s Infinity Dub Sessions With Paul St Hilaire. Deadbeat wears his Rhythm & Sound influence on his sleeve with his productions but it really doesn’t matter as the record is so good.
Rhythm & Sound did a record with Paul St Hilaire too. Links to both below and also a few tunes from the Deadbeat/Paul St Hilaire Infinty Dub Sessions below too…

Deadbeat & Paul St Hilaire - Infinity Dub Sessions
https://www.discogs.com/Deadbeat-And-Paul-St-Hilaire-The-Infinity-Dub-Sessions/master/660401

Rhythm & Sound with Paul St Hilaire - Showcase
https://www.discogs.com/Rhythm-Sound-w-Paul-St-Hilaire-Showcase/master/2812

Deadbeat & Paul St Hilaire - Dopa
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YVptg_gZxLA

Deadbeat & Paul St Hilaire - Little Darling
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mvdWW4CGIis

Man…I hadn’t heard the above tunes for aaaaaages and I missed them! That LP is HUUUUGE!!! Haha