Tag: Eurythmics (Page 2 of 3)

CONNY PLANK The Potential Of Noise

15 January 2019 /

“With this noise, I can try to find if it is possible to make music out of it…”

‘The Potential Of Noise’ is a touching insight into the late Conny Plank, undoubtedly one of the most innovative and important studio exponents in popular music.

Directed by his son Stephan with Reto Caduff, the film sees him embarking on a journey to rediscover his father’s impact and his importance in music history.

As the studio in the converted farmhouse in Wolperath, half an hour’s drive from Cologne, was also the family home, Stephan grew up around the artists who his father worked with.

John Foxx is one artist who considers Conny Plank to be the most important record producer since George Martin, having recorded ULTRAVOX’s ‘Systems Of Romance’ album with him in 1978. ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK also has spoken to a number of the musicians who Conny Plank worked with and all had nothing but affectionate memories of him.

Eberhard Kranemann, a one-time member of KRAFTWERK who later recorded an album ‘Fritz Müller Rock’ with Plank said: “He was a very important man, for me in the last century he was the most important producer, engineer and mixer in the whole world, THE BEST! He was so great that he even turned down David Bowie and U2. He was very honest, he didn’t want to work with them.”

DAF drummer and instrumentalist Robert Görl who made four albums with Plank went further… “He was almost like a father to me, we lived at the studio so it was all very familiar. We had a room and slept there” he said, “we would go down in the morning and he would be making breakfast while his girlfriend Christa Fast would make cakes. It was a very homely feeling that we remember most. And this made it easier for us to feel good and create without having a heavy head.”

“To work with him was always a pleasure” said Bodo Staiger of RHEINGOLD, “he was relaxed, very competent and had the talent to listen what the artist wants. And he also brought some good ideas and inspiration. For example, the percussive synth sound on ‘Dreiklangsdimensionen’ was his idea.”

Michael Rother remembered “he was so valuable… we wouldn’t have been able to record NEU! or the second HARMONIA album or my solo albums without Conny, so he’s all over the place in my music… thank you Conny.”

With such compliments, any film featuring prominent figures such as Midge Ure, Daniel Miller and David A Stewart recounting their memories of working with Conny Plank was likely to be fascinating. But for his son Stephan who was only 13 years old when Plank passed away in December 1987, this bittersweet film has been a journey to understand more about his father while confronting his demons of being neglected.

The key to Plank’s success was undoubtedly his personality rather than his actual technique and his ability to get the best out of the people, something he felt he wouldn’t be able to do working with David Bowie or U2. Today, Plank’s custom hand-built 56 channel mixing desk is owned by David M Allen, another producer known for his warm outlook and gift for providing an environment for artists to excel.

For those who perhaps only know Plank’s work through KRAFTWERK and ULTRAVOX, the soundtrack that accompanies ‘The Potential Of Noise’ is an education, with the instrumental music of NEU! and CLUSTER & ENO being particularly effective. Among the interviewees are the late Holger Czukay, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Michael Rother, Robert Görl, Karl Hyde, Jaz Coleman, Annette Humpe, Gianna Nannini and many more.

Daniel Miller describes Plank’s work as experimental but still musical, while Robert Görl and Annette Humpe recall how Plank was particularly good at capturing the right mood for recording with “no rules”.

Conny Plank only produced the debut EURYTHMICS album ‘In The Garden’ in 1981, but David A Stewart applied that hippy with technology philosophy to their breakthrough second album ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’, mixing electronics with brass in a converted church studio.

Although recorded at RAK Studios in London, Midge Ure remembers after playing the demo of ‘Vienna’, ULTRAVOX talked musically about the plans for recording while Plank thought in terms of sound; he imagined an old man at a piano in a desolate theatre who had been playing the same tune for forty years. And when Billy Currie came to record his ivory parts, that was exactly the feel which Plank had engineered for the now iconic track.

For Plank, money and tapes were things that passed through his life, but his generosity is apparent throughout this documentary, both financially and in spirit. Michael Rother talks of how Plank helped to fund the recording of the first NEU! album to ensure that the duo had as much independence as possible to create, while it is also known he had offered to finance the recording of the first Midge Ure fronted ULTRAVOX album before the band signed to Chrysalis Records.

The most emotional recollections of Conny Plank come from hip-hop duo WHODINI who consider Conny’s Studio to be the best facility that they have ever recorded in, while also glowing about the effort which Plank made towards providing a recording environment that was as comfortable as possible, something the pair never experienced again after that visit to Germany.

But despite the generosity to his artists, the film tells of how Plank was not exactly the perfect father to Stephan, with Holger Czukay remembering that Plank treated Stephan as Christa Fast’s son, rather than his own. It’s a point also highlighted by Annette Humpe who tellingly, actually asks Stephan on camera whether his father ever took him out into the countryside; it turned out he did… but for just one afternoon.

Resigned to the fact that few photos exist of them together, Stephan reflects that the best memento of his father now is his vast catalogue of work. Plank’s own end is sad, with him becoming too ill to mix EURYTHMICS ‘Revenge’ album following returning from a concert tour in South America with Dieter Moebius.

Despite Christa nursing him back to near health with a new diet regime, Plank’s need to work ultimately consumed him and worsened his condition, eventually leading to the cancer to which he succumbed to.

The film concludes with Stephan taking his own young family to Wolperath to see his former home, reminiscing about the bathroom where the gold and platinum discs used to hang, as well as the dining area where the family and the visiting artists used to sit.

With the final words of the documentary, Midge Ure summarises that the music Plank made was timeless and ultimately outlived him. Described by KILLING JOKE’s Jaz Coleman as “a revolutionary”, when the end credits roll of ‘The Potential Of Noise’, it’s rather appropriately to the proto-punk of ‘Hero’ by NEU!

‘The Potential Of Noise’ is released on DVD by Cleopatra Entertainment

The 4CD box set ‘Who’s That Man: A Tribute To Conny Plank’ is available via Grönland Records ‎

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Text by Chi Ming Lai
15th January 2019

PETER ASHWORTH Mavericks

20 November 2018 /

A graduate of the London College Of Printing, photographer Peter Ashworth created some of the most iconic images from New Romantic and beyond.

His photographs adorned albums covers such as the debut long player by VISAGE, SOFT CELL ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’, ASSOCIATES ‘Sulk’, EURYTHMICS ‘In The Garden’, DEAD OR ALIVE ‘Sophisticated Boom-Boom’, ADAM & THE ANTS ‘Kings Of The Wild Frontier’ and many more.

Meanwhile, his memorable portraits have included artists as varied as FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, ERASURE, ULTRAVOX, THE THE, THE CLASH, THE CULT, THE ART OF NOISE, SWING OUT SISTER, PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED, THE LIGHTNING SEEDS and SPACE while his photos of BLANCMANGE, EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL and THE CULT appeared in ‘Smash Hits’.

But it was his image of Annie Lennox in a mask and an ironic strong arm pose for ‘The Face’ that was to become his best remembered shot; the visually powerful statement was then used on the cover of ‘Touch’, the third album by EURYTHMICS.

At a time when image was critical to how an act and their music were perceived, record covers were the first port of call for any potential fan. Thus Ashworth’s eye was ideal as he worked mostly with large square format Hassalblad cameras, so there was never that dilemma of what might be cropped out in a landscape format shot. Having already debuted the ‘Mavericks’ exhibition in Liverpool, the London variant was specifically adapted for the Lever Gallery in Islington. In Ashworth’s own words: “the prints have deep colours, strong graphics, and are beautifully printed”.

Ashworth loved to create extravagant sets for his backgrounds like The Jungle Of Desire for various formats of FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD’s ‘Welcome To The Pleasure Dome’ or the kaleidoscopic horticultural menagerie for ASSOCIATES to inhabit on the cover image of ‘Sulk’. What Ashworth helped to reinforce was the element of artifice in music of this period, which ultimately allowed the listener to embark on a truly escapist adventure.

So it was a total honour and privilege for ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK to have Peter Ashworth personally guide around his wonderful ‘Mavericks’ exhibition and to hear the stories behind his iconic photographs.

Many are now time capsules of fashion and popular culture like his dressing room photo of TRANSVISION VAMP which adorned their ‘Velveteen’ long player, capturing a time before mobile photos when bands would pass the hours away before showtime reading books about THE VELVET UNDERGROUND and sex movies!

Interestingly, Ashworth confessed to rarely listening to the artists he was photographing so that he could focus on the best visual presentation possible.

Meanwhile, he also admitted he wasn’t really a fan of anybody except perhaps the late German producer Conny Plank and that his favourite type of music was deep house.

Though his cool portrait of Bryan Ferry dragging on a Marlboro has been popular with many casual observers, Ashworth’s own favourites are actually of two lesser known New Romantic personalities Ronny and Peter Godwin.

The former was a French protégée of Rusty Egan who cut a striking figure androgynously suited in Anthony Price, while the latter released two singles ‘Torch Song For The Heroine’ and ‘Images of Heaven’ which featured members of ULTRAVOX. Although never having a hit in his own right, Godwin hit paydirt when David Bowie covered ‘Criminal World’ by his previous band METRO on the ten million selling ‘Let’s Dance’ album.

A regular visitor to The Blitz Club, Ashworth was a natural choice for the eponymous debut VISAGE album cover image in 1980. Shot in the actual club itself, he had titled the photo ‘The Swing’ thanks to the dancing pose captured of Steve Strange and model Vivienne Tribbeck in front of three silhouetted jazz musicians, one of whom was the soon-to-be famous milliner Stephen Jones. The eventual artwork was actually hand tinted by Iain Gilles, so it was fabulous to see the original photo which to be honest looks better!

One of the acts most closely associated with Peter Ashworth has been SOFT CELL and he took many photographs of Marc Almond and Dave Ball during their career, as well as being an occasional drummer in Almond’s MARC & THE MAMBAS venture. The ‘Bedsitter’ image highlighted Ashworth’s use of props which in this case were a number of kitchen utensils. But the duo’s tense facial expressions can be explained by the fact that the props kept falling off the wall behind them!

‘Mavericks’ is a must see exhibition for anyone remotely interested in pop music and its visual presentation. There is also the opportunity to purchase a quality greeting card set of six iconic Peter Ashworth images which because they measure 6″ x 6″, four can fit perfectly into one of those album artwork frames available in HMV or Fopp… so guess what ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK did???

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thank to Peter Ashworth

‘Mavericks’, a photographic show by Peter Ashworth runs at the Lever Gallery, 153 -157 Goswell Road, London EC1V 7HD until 20th December 2018 – entry is free and open Tuesday to Sunday or by appointment

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Text and Photos by Chi Ming Lai
20th November 2018, updated 11th December 2018

The Walk: The Legacy of EURYTHMICS

16 April 2018 /

Photo by Lewis Ziolek

Between April and October this year, sees the vinyl reissues of eight EURYTHMICS albums ‘In The Garden’, ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)’, ‘Touch’, ‘Be Yourself Tonight’, ‘Revenge’, ‘We Too Are One’, ‘Savage’ and ‘Peace’ and gives a welcome chance to look back retrospectively over the duo’s musical output.

Although it didn’t trouble the charts, the debut 1981 album ‘In The Garden’ provided a necessary bridging point between Annie Lennox and David A Stewart’s output as New Wave act THE TOURISTS and their newly convened status as a duo.

Co-produced by the legendary Conny Plank in his Cologne studio and featuring BLONDIE drummer Clem Burke, Robert Görl from DAF, and CAN’s Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit, the album swings between the guitar-driven post-punk sound of ‘English Summer’ and the more rocky ‘Belinda’ which would foreshadow some the band’s more rockist leanings latterly in their career.

Due to Plank’s top notch production and Lennox’s effortlessly beautiful vocals throughout, the album hasn’t dated too badly and if never listened to before certainly doesn’t hint at the stellar jump with their subsequent offering ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’.

Recorded in their newly fitted out 8 track home studio in Chalk Farm London purchased using a £5,000 bank loan, ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)’ would have come as a complete curveball if as a fan you’d latched onto the more pastoral guitar-based sound of ‘In The Garden’; almost purely electronic in conception and with the backbeat of Stewart’s Movement Drum Computer (which puts in a cameo appearance in the iconic ‘Sweet Dreams’ promo video).

Also significant for the album was the use of Dave Stewart’s EDP Wasp synth which (according to Synth Guru Paul Wiffen) was often recorded using a microphone placed over the in-built speaker in order to capture the sound of the resonating body of the synth’s case alongside its source sound.

With YAZOO’s debut ‘Upstairs at Eric’s’ opening the public’s perception to cold electronics with an accompaniment of soulful vocals, the timing of ‘Sweet Dreams’ couldn’t have been better. There are obvious echoes of Clarke and Moyet in tracks such as ‘Wrap it Up’, but the addition of Stewart’s guitar and the bigger multi-layered vocal production meant that they don’t come across as mere pastiches.

Musically one of the things that becomes apparent on ‘Sweet Dreams’ is Stewart’s knack at creating some truly wonderful synth basslines, often using a Roland SH09. From ‘I Could Give You (A Mirror)’ to the ‘The Walk’, these perfectly counterpointed Lennox’s glacial vocals and set a template for what was to follow with album number three ‘Touch’.

‘Touch’ is often overlooked when it comes to people’s go-to classic electronic albums; this could possibly be down to the huge success of the Calypso-themed ‘Right By Your Side’ which at the end of the day really wasn’t representative of the album as a whole. This is a shame, because ‘Touch’ is arguably the band’s finest hour, tracks such as the singles ‘Who’s That Girl?’ and ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’ are matched by album cuts ‘Regrets’ and ‘No Fear, No Hate, No Pain (No Broken Hearts).

‘The First Cut’ echoes YAZOO’s ‘Sweet Thing’ but brings in some live guitar and fretless/slapped bass to the party; whilst the epic 7 and a half minute closing ‘Paint A Rumour’ takes the listener on a spellbinding musical journey incorporating blippy Kraftwerkian electro pop, dub brass and BLANCMANGE-like Middle Eastern synth elements along the way. Unfortunately the band were never truly this electronic again, with the remix/mini-LP ‘Touch Dance’ eventually giving way to 1985’s ‘Be Yourself Tonight’…….

The next two albums ‘Be Yourself Tonight’ and ‘Revenge’ continued to give the band some huge chart hits; ‘There Must Be An Angel’ was the band’s only UK No1 single from the former, but tracks which had the potential to echo EURYTHMICS earlier electronic work (including the Linn Drum-driven ‘I Love You Like A Ball & Chain’) seemed to become an excuse for Stewart to wig-out with a show-off guitar solo.

Songs such as ‘Thorn in My Side’ started to showcase EURYTHMICS steady mutation (and some would say decline) into a US radio-friendly guitar act with most of their electronic elements gradually being exorcised from the bands’ production. In some ways EURYTHMICS followed a similar career trajectory to SIMPLE MINDS with stadium rock leanings starting to filter into their recorded output and before you knew it, songs appeared to be written specifically for large arenas.

With the next couple of albums there were still a few glimmers of experimentation, THE ART OF NOISE-aping, Fairlight-driven ‘Beethoven (I Love To Listen)’ from ‘Savage’ was an unexpected single choice, but stalled at number 25 in the UK charts.

The highlight of 1989’s ‘We Too Are One’ (with its striking cover photo by Jean Baptiste Mondino) was the melancholic break-up single ‘Don’t Ask Me Why’ which in many ways echoed ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’, especially with its use of pizzicato strings.

After a ten year hiatus, ‘Peace’ saw Lennox and Stewart reconvene with the understated ‘I Saved the World Today’ giving them some chart success, only narrowly missing the UK top 10. With its almost PORTISHEAD retro-style textures, it went some way in distancing the band from its more bombastic productions.

By overviewing the band’s output, the listener could cynically surmise that EURYTHMICS jumped on the Synth Britannia bandwagon; riding on YAZOO’s coat tails by adopting an electronic aesthetic and then slowly revealing themselves as the rock band that they actually were all along (underneath all of the production surface). That would however do a huge disservice to their early work, which includes some of the VERY best electronic pop tracks from that era.

Interestingly, Dave Stewart confirmed the spiritual link with YAZOO by eventually going on to work with Alison Moyet, co-writing / co-producing ‘Is This Love?’ under the pseudonym Jean Guiot (used to avoid problems with his music publishers).

The mid-period and latter albums (although in many places giving the band deserved huge commercial success) do however chart EURYTHMICS slow transformation into an entirely different musical beast altogether. For those that bemoan the way DEPECHE MODE now deliver their songs live, should take some solace in that Lennox and Stewart committed far worse musical crimes to some of their iconic synth pop hits than Gahan and co are doing now…

Jean-Baptiste Mondino

So in terms of influence, what is there left to say about EURYTHMICS legacy? Their nearest contemporaries now would be GOLDFRAPP and PURITY RING; acts that use that male synth / female vocal dynamic.

Completists could possibly complain that the soundtrack to the motion picture ‘1984 (For The Love Of Big Brother)’ and ‘Touch Dance’ albums should have made the set up to a round 10, but for most, ‘Sweet Dreams’ and ‘Touch’ still remain the essential albums to own, with ‘In The Garden’ being seen as more of an interesting curio in the band’s back catalogue.

‘In The Garden’, ‘Sweet Dreams’, ‘Touch’, ‘Be Yourself Tonight’, ‘Revenge’, ‘Savage’, ‘We Too Are One’ and ‘Peace’ are reissued by Sony Music in three stages through 2018

http://www.eurythmics.com

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Text by Paul Boddy
16th April 2018

ROBERT GÖRL Interview

23 November 2017 /

DEUTSCH AMERIKANISCHE FREUNDSCHAFT or DAF are the influential pioneers of electronic body music.

Forming at Die Ratinger Hof in Düsseldorf, DAF’s punky ethos became fully realised thanks to the availability of newly affordable synthesizer technology from Japan. Attaching the powerful sound to heavy rhythms and Teutonic expression, the energetic aggression of the music reflected their militaristic aesthetic, as exemplified by songs like ‘Der Mussolini’ and’ Kebabträume’.

Between 1981-1982, the nucleus of Gabi Delgado on vocals and Robert Görl on drums and electronics released an acclaimed trilogy comprising of ‘Alles Ist Gut’, ‘Gold Und Liebe’ and ‘Für Immer’ which were produced by the legendary Conny Plank and originally came out on Virgin Records.

That trilogy along with what was the first album ever released on Mute Records ‘Die Kleinen Und Die Bösen’ (which Plank also worked on) form the bulk of ‘Das Ist DAF’;  a celebratory boxed set released by Grönland Records, the set also features a bonus disc of respectful remixes while the lavish vinyl edition exclusively contains the treat of a brand new DAF single entitled ‘Die Sprache Der Liebe’.

While DAF fell under a haze of “sex, drugs and sequencer” after 1982, Görl began a solo career with the cult favourite ‘Mit Dir’ in 1983. This was followed by ‘Night Full Of Tension’, an album which saw Görl embracing synthpop and the English language. It featured vocal contributions from Annie Lennox of EURYTHMICS.

Fast forward to the present day, Görl and Delgado-Lopez have more than occasionally reunited for DAF shows, while the DAF drummer has been showcasing his ‘Glücksritter’ live only project to audiences around Europe, most recently at the 2017 ELECTRI_CITY CONFERENCE in Düsseldorf.

With the success of the ‘Das Ist DAF’ boxed set and the accompanying authorised biography of the same title due to break cover, Robert Görl kindly chatted about DAF’s past, present and future while also reminiscing about the beginnings of his solo career and working with Conny Plank.

Are you pleased with the ‘Das Ist DAF’ boxed set and what it has achieved?

Yes, I’m happy, we put in just the core albums and I thought the different remixes were a great idea plus of course, there is a very special new DAF single in the box.

It’s taken a long time to get new DAF material together, what was the idea behind ‘Die Sprache Der Liebe’?

The working process how we did it was completely old school, like in our old days. I have to say when me and Gabi come together, we don’t do so many new records, we have lots of different projects and sometimes we do DAF. The last DAF album was already 15 years ago! But sometimes we meet and talk about maybe doing something new and this time, it worked because we had Grönland and they said they would be very happy if we did at least a single.

For me and Gabi, the two songs we did was kind of a test, I did the sequences, made all of the music and then the drumming before Gabi did the lyrics and singing. It’s in the same style like in the old days. It’s not like what many bands do… Gabi lives in Spain and me in Berlin, but I don’t send audio files for him to progress further before sending it back to me or for a third person to mix it… I don’t like this style of working when people don’t even see each other to do a record. This for me is very boring.

So me and Gabi had to meet and come together, I played him my sequences. He sees everything like my drumming and I see Gabi while he puts down his first lines and makes them better while I’m in the studio.

Gabi says you still love your vintage synthesizers?

Yes, I still love them. For example, this single is a Korg MS20 and the Korg sequencer, as is the B-side ‘Ich Bin Nicht Da’

Did you and Gabi choose the remixers?

Grönland suggested these guys like WESTBAM and BOYZ NOISE, we were happy with them and agreed. Apparently when they approached Giorgio Moroder, he said “Greetings to the DAF guys, tell them I really want to do it” – this was fantastic.

There is this new authorised book ‘Das Ist DAF’? Is it a tale of “sex, drugs and sequencer”?

The most interesting part of the book is it tells the hard truth. We were interviewed many times for the book and it is not about a band where everything worked fine, where it’s a nice and successful polished career. No, in this book, the reader will see how at many points, Gabi and me had discomfort and there were times when it was not so nice.

We never had fist fights but we did split and said “you go your way and I go mine”. We talk very honestly about what happened and when it was sh*t *laughs*

So was your first solo album ‘Night Full Of Tension’ a result of one of these splits?

Yes, we’d worked for 5 years together as DAF and we were burned out. This was the first split and very heavy, we could not even see each other anymore because we were together day and night for those 5 years. I wanted to do something else.

How did it feel on that album to not be drumming as well as writing and singing in English?

Around this time, I was getting more into pop. When we split DAF at this highpoint, when you look at our style and how we behaved with these three successful DAF albums, we were like pop stars, more or less. We had lots of money and good clothes, I could just book a flight to New York and go… we had everything that we wanted. I wanted to make a pop album and at this time, I was invited to London and New York a lot.

People suggested to me if I wanted to really make it worldwide, I should do an English album. In the 80s, the kingdom of pop music was still London so for me, it was normal and not a big compromise.

What was it like working with Annie Lennox?

She was involved in helping me with lyrics, I went to Montpellier for 2 weeks to write the basic ideas and then I showed her them in London.

She would make suggestions so we worked together on the lyrics, that’s why she was also on the album.

You released a great standalone single ‘Mit Dir’ before ‘Night Full Of Tension’. Have you heard DJ HELL and STEREO MCs cover version of it as ‘With You’?

I think they did a good well-produced version; ‘Mit Dir’ is my favourite solo song…

…DJ HELL also did a remix with you of ‘Liebe Auf Den Ersten Blick’ for ‘Das Ist DAF’?

Yes, I liked it… I had a few arguments about how he did it, but in the end it was a good product.

There was also the Prada commercial using the ‘Headed For The Sun’ version by MURK.FM?

That was a good one…

The ‘Das Ist DAF’ boxed set highlights your productive relationship with Conny Plank on those classic albums? What sort of person was he?

Conny was like home, he made it comfortable for all the bands he produced. What I really liked about him was he gave you comfort. Even at lunchtime, we met many times in the kitchen and he would just give Gabi and me his studio. He said “Take my studio, it’s yours”. He gave us time and wouldn’t look at the watch saying “we must do this and this and that now”, he was not like this.

Was he like your favourite uncle?

He was almost like a father to me, we lived at the studio so it was all very familiar. We had a room and slept there, we would go down in the morning and he would be making breakfast, while his girlfriend Christa Fast would make cakes. It was the very homely feeling that we remember most. And this made it easier for us to feel good and create without having a heavy head.

Other studios can give you headaches because of the deadlines, it was the opposite at Conny’s Studio. He would come down in the afternoon, listen and say “hey, this sounds good, let’s record it”… it was warm and comfortable with no pressure. He was a fan of our music and he was a gentleman. He always found the moment when we were hot… this was very good.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Robert Görl

Special Thanks to Rudi Esch

‘Das Ist DAF: Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft – Die Autorisierte Biografie’ by Gabi Delgado, Robert Görl, Miriam Spies and Rudi Esch is published by Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf

The boxed set ‘Das Ist DAF’ is released by Grönland Records, available in vinyl and CD formats

DAF perform at Malmö Inkonst on Saturday 25th November 2017

http://www.robert-goerl.de

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Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
23rd November 2017

Lost Albums: ROBERT GÖRL Night Full Of Tension

22 October 2017 /

DEUTSCH AMERIKANISCHE FREUNDSCHAFT, also more commonly referred to as DAF, undoubtedly all but invented electronic body music; the late veteran DJ John Peel charmingly called them the “Grandfathers of Techno”.

Featuring the nucleus of Gabi Delgado-Lopez on vocals and Robert Görl on drums and electronics, their punky ethos utilised the availability of the-then newly affordable synthesizer technology, attaching the Korg MS20 semi-modular synth driven by its corresponding 16-step SQ10 analog sequencer to heavy Teutonic rhythms.

DAF’s music was a confrontational statement against the very strong American influence in popular culture that had seeped into post-war Germany. But following the cult success of their acclaimed Virgin album trilogy of ‘Alles Ist Gut’, ‘Gold Und Liebe’ and ‘Für Immer’ produced by Conny Plank, DAF went into hiatus after falling under a haze of “sex, drugs and sequencer”.

1982’s ‘Für Immer’ with its best known song ‘Kebabträume’ had already seen DAF veer towards synthpop territory at various points, but it was still something of a surprise when the DAF drummer appeared in 1984 with an eight track album made in that vein, released on Mute Records.

Görl’s solo career had begun with a standalone single ‘Mit Dir’ in 1983. Dark, brooding and magnificent, the song was to become a favourite among the cognoscenti, eventually borrowed by a newer generation of electronic duos like SIN COS TAN, reinterpreted for Prada commercials and covered by DJ HELL with STEREO MCs. But by ‘Night Full Of Tension’, Görl had lightened up considerably and the artwork even had him looking totally relaxed, posing by a swimming pool.

Co-produced by Mike Hedges who had worked his studio magic on ASSOCIATES ‘Sulk’, the percussive backbone of the record was dominated by an Oberheim DMX, in a contrast to the live drumming that DAF followers were used to. And while sequencers were still prevalent, the patterns were now more sophisticated, thanks to the advent of digital sequencers like the Oberheim DSK which could control polyphonic synths such as the OBXa which DAF had used on ‘Für Immer’.

Singing in English apart from on the solemn Brecht-influenced cabaret art piece ‘Gewinnen Wir Die Beste Der Frauen’ reciting a 13th Century Poem by Walther Von Metze,  Görl exuded a relaxed vocal style in the manner of Bryan Ferry and David Bowie that actually came over more like Yukihiro Takahashi of YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA and Winston Tong of TUXEDOMOON.

Photo by Sabine Raef

And in another twist, ‘Night Full Of Tension’ featured vocal contributions from Annie Lennox; the two had met when Görl played on EURYTHMICS’ ‘Belinda’ from ‘In The Garden’ which Conny Plank had produced. Laced with ad-libs by Lennox, ‘Playtime’ was a fine accessible opener recalling NEW ORDER that showcased the sequencer and drum machine driven pop ethos of the album.

‘I Love Me’ referenced ASSOCIATES and resembled a less frantic and more electronic ‘Club Country’, a track which Mike Hedges helmed. Given the Mute connection too, elements of DEPECHE MODE’s DAF influences that had been heard on ‘Construction Time Again’ ironically also crept in… the sorcerer was grabbing back from the apprentice. Meanwhile the quirky ‘Charlie Cat’ actually saw Lennox take the entire lead vocal and unsurprisingly, it sounded like something by EURYTHMICS as around this time, David A Stewart was using similar Oberheim equipment.

The second half of ‘Night Full Of Tension’ was glorious; ‘Queen King’ played with androgyny and sexuality over hypnotic sequences and synthetic brass stabs, while on the brilliant ‘Love In Mind’, its machine groove sat comfortably next to the similarly constructed ‘Big Brother’ by Winston Tong and ‘Big Blue World’ by Paul Haig as fine examples of the sophisticated electronic pop that was emerging during this period.

But the album’s highlight was probably ‘Darling Don’t Leave Me’, a passionate but fun duet with Lennox that was also a wonderfully wiggly synthpop pleasure. Closing with ‘Wind In Hair’, this was the closest ‘Night Full Of Tension’ got to DAF, its bassline resembling ‘Der Mussolini’ although this realisation was far lighter, with the synthetic choir and string drones pushing it closer to KRAFTWERK.

DAF reconvened in 1985 for ‘1st Step To Heaven’, their only album in English, but the pair parted ways again. Since then, Görl and Delgado-Lopez have more than occasionally reunited for DAF shows, while the recent release of the ‘Das Ist DAF’ boxed set on Grönland Records has cemented the duo’s status as the “Grandfathers of Techno”.

Meanwhile, the intervening years have seen Görl pursue that very Techno direction with albums like ‘Watch The Great Copy Cat’, ‘Sexdrops’, ‘Final Metal Pralinées’ and ‘Dark Tool Symphony’. So like Winston Tong’s wonderful ’Theoretically Chinese’ excursion, ‘Night Full Of Tension’ was a one-off experiment.

But Görl’s intriguing and cool escapist journey into synthpop crossed over into an audience that may have found DAF a bit too threatening, and that was not necessarily a bad thing. ‘Night Full Of Tension’ is a very good but forgotten body of work that deserves as much recognition as DAF’s Virgin-era albums.

‘Night Full Of Tension’ is still available via Mute Records as a digital album featuring the extended version of ‘Mit Dir’ as a bonus track

http://www.robert-goerl.de

http://mute.com/category/robert-gorl

https://www.groenland.com/en/artist/deutsch-amerikanische-freundschaft/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Sabine Raef
22nd October 2017

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