"No Escape," Caberet Voltaire (1979)

 One of my favorite early electro punk singles;  bleak, brooding, tribal, and punchy hammer down electronics. And I'm pretty sure burnishing their punk cred with a reworking of '60s protopunk garage classic, "Pushin' Too Hard," by the Seeds. 

DAF and Robert Gorl (Sans Umlaut): The Origins of Gothic Synthpop Dance Music

"Beruhrt Verfurht," ("touched seduced") Robert Gorl (1984) sounds like Alan Vega's (Suicide) German cousin. Mumbly, breathy, inscrutably emphatic, especially in Gorl's case because it's all in German, so no idea what he's on about until I looked it up. Although touching and seduction as subjects wouldn't have been too hard a guess. The girl singer sounds like a dry sassy Dietrich update. It's a nice '80s techno pop period tune. 

But Gorl, more like Suicide's Martin Rev, I'm learning is really a pioneering maestro of creative synthpop tempos, goosestepping stomps, hopped up polka Oompahs, robotic Teutonic jamming with a minimalist's blunt appeal, and a widely revered pioneer of Techno music. 

Here's Gorl showing off his instrumental chops and drollery on this 1984 failed solo stab at the charts: 

But where it all started was Gorl as one-half D.A.F. ("German American Friendship") with Gabi Delgado, German post-punk innovators, pioneers of synth-pop and industrial dance music styles between 1978 and 1984. Gabi adds the punky mock Nazi authority vocals and lyrics, crucial to their radical origins fashioning an electronics and synth based analogue to 1977 London punk rock. 

Add Gorl's brilliantly propulsive and minimalist drums and electronics, some production help from Krautrock legend Conny Plank (Kraftwerk, Neu, Cluster), and the first four DAF albums are extremely listenable, a journey from art-punk to what they called "Electronic Body Music" or EBM, and was rarely exceeded in catchy proto-synthpop sounds from that period. 

And they are another secret treasure in the annals of postpunk music unearthed for me by Simon Reynolds postpunk book. Back in the day I'd admired DAF no further than "Der Mussolini" as a kind of punk era one-hit-wonder. But never searched any further until running into them again in Reynold's Rip It Up and Start Again. 

"Der Mussolini" (1981), an international hit and monster in the dance clubs, was my first DAF song. The electro punk edge was instantly grabbing, but I barely noticed the dancing to Mussolini, Hitler, Jesus Christ, Communism, and right/left rhetoric beyond punk provocation and sloganeering. The provocations struck me as mocking as the Sex Pistols. 

  

Anyway, a deeper appreciation of their postpunk electronic synthesis now comes as exciting news. Their punk rock incubation phase is viscerally charged, to say the least. Check out this performance of "Ich und die Wirklichkeit" ("Me and Reality") (1981). Delgado on the mic, Gorl at the drums, but not sure about the New Romantic help on the electronics? But key! An electro charged punk rock fit. 

Best translation I could find googling: 

Me and I

In real life

Me and I

In reality

I feel so weird

I feel so weird

I feel so weird

I feel so weird

Me and I

In real, ha, life

The reality comes

Reality comes

Reality comes

Reality comes

I feel so weird.

Delgado is a hypnotically effective ranter, his tortured sarcasm comes through without much translation. This one standard issue existential punk rock angst but crucially with drums and electronics, no guitar. 

"Sato-Sato" (translates from Japanese as "always active"?), DAF (WestBam Remix from 2017): Priceless original early '80s footage of punkers dancing to DAF's electronic punk montaged by contemporary mixmaster WestBam. Public service:  

So of course the more fully up to date music people as opposed to a Mr. Magoo dilettante like me have been onto my DAF discovery for at least twenty years. Here's DAF dominating the Wire Festival in 2003 with another one of their Techno punk classics, "Alle Gegen Alle" ("All Against All") (1981). Flirting with violent fascist imagery via Hobbes, but again emphasizing the power over the hate-mongering. 

There's more trigger warning talk online about DAF, about how they were out gays and their lyrics tended toward explicit sex and rough trade stuff. I can definitely see some of the gay leather thing in their album covers but until this late edition song I haven't encountered much explicit language. Again, not that I'd notice with the German, other than to observe a lot of German sounds like cursing to me, if not particularly sexual. But looking up a few translations of the DAF I'm sharing here this is the first song I've come upon with explicit language. So adult content warning but also an evolved example of their special combo of tricky beats and aggressive electronics and sarcastic humor. 

"Ich glaub ich fick dich später" ("I Think I'll Fuck You Later") DAF/DOS (1996): 

A lot more where this came from that I don't know but a previously unexplored synthpop fountainhead source of electronic music fans of the genre will want to know, I will insist. DAF are one of the key founders of postpunk electronic-based gothic dance music and if you like any one of those musical categories they are not to be missed. Invigorating.  

"Alien Point of View," Nervous Gender (1981)

Pounding tribal tempo, alien punk explicit sex body shaming ranting. Electropunk OGs from LA. Wonder if NG ever played a Burning Man, although do BM's go back that far? Speaking of, a missing piece in Erik Davis's otherwise very engaging book, High Weirdness (2019), was more musical analogues to the druggie hippie cyberpunk synthesis networking through California during the 1970s. The Dead were throwbacks and don't seem to count, not techie enough. One strong candidate is Nervous Gender, along with SF's Chrome or Tuxedomoon or even The Residents. All from the same classic punk/New Wave/post-punk 1978 to 1982 window, or that was their wheelhouse anyhow. Technologically mutant punk rock. Psychedelic cyberpunk. Sexually explicit acid-punk. Scifi-punk. Art-punks having sex with cyborgs. A nugget of high weirdness, "Alien Point of View," in '70s/'80s California music. BTW, you might remember lesbian folk singer Phranc from the '80s. Started out in Nervous Gender but was gone before this recording. Many parts of other classic LA punk rock bands, Germs, Screamers, The Bags, support and cycle through NG. Edward Stapleton and Matt Comeione, core band members, are still at it. Gerardo Valazquez, another founding member, died in 1992.  

More background on Nervous Gender.