DAF
Alles ist Gut

LA RECENSIONE

According to the opinion of the writer, the greatest German band of all time, DAF (which stands for Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, or German-American Friendship), are universally considered the inventors of the Electronic Body Music genre, a kind of hard dance music where the rhythm was marked more by the synth textures than by the beats.

Like the American band Suicide, the music of DAF was minimalistic and constructed exclusively on two elements: the martial rhythm and the dark and driving synthetic progressions of drummer and composer Robert Görl, and the deep and flamboyant voice of the singer of Spanish origin, Gabi Delgado Lopez. The declared aim of the two was to create music in opposition to Anglo-American tunes and those popular in the leftist alternative social centers that monopolized music with their "single thought". In reaction to all this, the Düsseldorf duo recorded a track that would mark, for better or worse, their entire career: the alternative club hit "Der Mussolini". With its unforgettable distorted synth loop and a provocative lyric (dance Mussolini... dance Adolf Hitler... dance communism... dance Jesus Christ) that sparked a storm of controversy (and fruitful sales), the track is not a neo-fascist anthem but simply a provocation to conformism and the "always-right left", a little like the swastikas of the Sex Pistols a few years earlier, except that unlike the British group, the unjust label of neo-Nazi would remain stuck to the Germans; this is the main reason why, despite their undeniable musical merits, very few people know about DAF, overlooked for imagined “political” reasons.

But "Alles ist gut" is not just "Der Mussolini" but an album of ten wonderful tracks: the erotic "Rote Lippen" and "Mein Herz macht Bum" with Delgado's voice reminiscent of the lust of Alan Vega's "Girl" with moans and sighs, the mental alienation of "Ich und die Wirklichkeit" and "Verlier nicht den Kopf", the romance of "Als war’s das letzte Mal", the martial (in every sense) "Alle gegen Alle", the dark "Sato-Sato", and the title track that closes the album with black sarcasm: over an oppressive synthesizer background, in a way that suggests exactly the opposite of the words, "Everything is good" sings Delgado. A must for lovers of music without prejudice.