Das Ich - Die Propheten (35th Anniversary Edition)

Die Propheten didn’t simply emerge from Germany’s dark underground. It helped give that underground a new language.

Originally released in 1991, Das Ich’s debut album became a foundational work of the movement commonly called Neue Deutsche Todeskunst, combining electronic music, early industrial, darkwave, and symphonic elements with uncompromising German-language lyrics. The album also helped establish Das Ich as one of the defining acts of Germany’s post-wave gothic and experimental electronic scene.

Stefan Ackermann’s intensely theatrical vocals give the record its human volatility, while Bruno Kramm constructs an imposing electronic backdrop of sequenced rhythms, synthesizers, orchestral textures, and industrial abrasion. The result occupies a space quite different from either conventional EBM or gothic rock. There’s a grand, almost expressionist quality to Die Propheten, with electronics used as much for drama and atmosphere as for rhythm.

“Kain Und Abel” and especially the monumental “Gottes Tod” became enduring scene staples, while the title track, “Des Satans Neue Kleider,” and “Der Hass” deepen the album’s apocalyptic atmosphere. Across its eight tracks, religious imagery, existential dread, violence, and humanity’s darker impulses are treated with a theatrical intensity that would become inseparable from Das Ich’s identity.

This 2026 Danse Macabre vinyl edition celebrates the album’s 35th anniversary, returning Die Propheten to LP after years of limited availability. The edition is listed as a limited, remastered reissue and retains the original eight-track program.

More than three decades later, Die Propheten remains a landmark of German dark music: severe, theatrical, experimental, and unmistakably Das Ich.