Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft

After the near-apocalyptic shrieks of ‘Ein Produkt der Deutsch Amerikanischen Freundschaft’ toned down just a touch but only just, for ‘Die Kleinen Und Die Bösen’.

Coming out on Mute as the album did, it helped not merely in establishing the group’s cachet but the label’s and, in turn, the whole genre of experimental electronic music in the 1980s and beyond.

The cover art alone, with the group’s name boldly printed white-on-black in all capitals, next to part of a Soviet propaganda poster, practically invented a rapidly overused industrial music design cliché. At the time, though, the group was ironically the most rock they would ever get, with bassist Chrislo Haas and guitarist Wolfgang Spelmans joining Robert Görl and Gabi Delgado.

The first half of ‘Die Kleinen und Die Bösen’ was a studio recording with Krautrock-producing legend Conny Plank, who did his usual fantastic job throughout.

The first of four classic albums of German electronic pioneers DAF, who established their own genre: EBM (Electronic/Euro Body Music or Efficient Brusque Modernity).