DAF

In 1978 DAF originated in Düsseldorf as a five-piece industrial-noise ensemble before shrinking to the core duo of vocalist and lyricist Gabi Delgado with drummer and electronic musician Robert Görl. That pair’s first major release, the 1981 album Alles Ist Gut, became a domestic success and established their lean, sexually charged aesthetic that helped shape industrial dance music. Occasional reunions yielded further material leaning toward techno, notably the 2003 set Fünfzehn Neue DAF Lieder. Following Delgado’s death in 2020, Görl assembled Nur Noch Einer from unused 1980s sequences; the album appeared in 2021.

Delgado and Görl launched the project in Düsseldorf that same year, soon augmented by additional players who went on to form other Neue Deutsche Welle groups such as Der Plan and Fehlfarben. With Delgado briefly absent, Görl, Kurt Dahlke (also known as Pyrolator), Michael Kemner and Wolfgang Spelmans recorded the improvised debut Produkt der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft, issued in 1979 on the German label then called Warning Records—later Ata Tak—and subsequently reissued by Mute. These tracks marked the start of German industrial music; the earliest Einstürzende Neubauten recordings, made a year afterward, closely echo them.

Chrislo Haas took Dahlke’s place and the band relocated to London. For a period Delgado sang while playing near-atonal guitar and Görl handled drums plus synthesizer; a 1979 performance at the Electric Ballroom supplied the second side of Die Kleinen und die Bösen, Mute’s inaugural release in 1980. Its first side captured the final studio session of the expanded lineup, produced by Conny Plank, whose influence would continue on later work. Even amid punk, the record’s fury stood out: it savagely lampooned German cultural figures, as in the ferocious cover of “Ich Bin die Fesche Lola,” one of Marlene Dietrich’s songs from The Blue Angel. The atonal disco track “Die Lüstigen Stiefel Marschiren über Polen,” a tongue-in-cheek yet hard-edged commentary on the Nazi invasion of Poland, was calculated to provoke in a West German society still marked by political liberalism, historical shame and terrorist incidents around 1980.

Delgado permanently set aside the guitar, the duo signed with Virgin Records and returned to Plank to create their landmark album Alles Ist Gut. Explosive in the rock underground by mid-1981, it reached number 15 on the German charts and stayed there nearly a year. Instrumentation had been pared to Delgado’s voice, Görl’s monolithic drums and a 16-voice sequencer repeating a single pattern throughout each song, shifting the group from art-punk into what they termed Electronic Body Music, or EBM. Plank’s precise production and restrained effects made Alles Ist Gut a state-of-the-art electronic dance album for its time; “Der Mussolini” became an international hit and club staple. Delgado’s lyrics equated fascism, religion and dance music while his vocal delivery remained both macho and raw; Görl’s drumming and sequencing blended funk, authority and experiment. Although the pair described themselves as “apolitical,” they were repurposing Nazi-style jingoism for gay German disco environments, complete with marching-boot rhythms—an approach that was deliberately transgressive yet compelling.

Their innovations, technical skill and critical acclaim never translated into mainstream acceptance. While other club acts tiptoed around alternative sexuality, DAF addressed it openly: album covers were overtly homoerotic and lyrics frequently explored sadomasochism. Despite the commercial promise of their big, industrial-derived dance sound, the group’s explicit stance placed them too far ahead of prevailing tastes. Gold und Liebe followed in the same vein, with further sonic and stylistic refinements; some critics regard it as the duo’s personal peak, even if Alles Ist Gut remains the defining statement. By 1982’s Für Immer the sequencer’s limitations had become clear, prompting an amicable disbandment.

Both members pursued solo work for a time—Delgado with 1982’s Mistress on Virgin and Görl with 1984’s Night Full of Tension on Mute, the latter featuring guest vocals by Annie Lennox. They reunited briefly in 1985 for the English-language synth-pop album 1st Step to Heaven, which attracted little attention. No further collaboration occurred until 2003, when they recorded the drum-machine-driven Fünfzehn Neue DAF Lieder, including the anti-George W. Bush track “The Sheriff.” Festival appearances that year left other acts on the bill overshadowed by DAF’s intense, timely performances, yet a full reunion did not follow. In early 2007 Delgado declined further dates and was replaced, with his approval, by Thoralf Dietrich of Jäger 90; the project was renamed DAF Partei. Görl and Delgado nevertheless issued the single “Du Bist DAF” in 2010.

Miriam Spies and Rudi Esch authored the authorized biography Das Ist DAF, published in German in 2017. Grönland Records released Reworx in 2018, containing remixes by artists including Giorgio Moroder and Boys Noize. Delgado died of a heart attack in 2020 shortly after the duo had agreed to begin a new album; Görl and co-producer Sylvie Marks recorded the tribute single “Ich Denk An Dich.” Görl subsequently reworked early London-era sequences into Nur Noch Einer, credited to Görl and DAF and issued in 2021.