AW-013: ZONENDUB - Sub-Vokal Raster
- 1Rasterpunkt I
- 2Rasterpunkt II
- 3Rasterpunkt III
- 4Zungenverlust
- 5Stammzelle
- 6Sprachverwehung
- 7Sub-Vokal Raster
- 8Mikrotonaler Restkörpe
AW-013
•
Open edition
AW-013: ZONENDUB – Sub-Vokal Raster
Label: Aurora Weltklang
Catalog No.: AW-013
Format: LP, 160 g vinyl with stencil-sprayed inner sleeve + transparency overlay insert
Release Date: July 1974
Edition: 311 copies (numbered, all hand-sprayed variants)
Recording Location: Herzkammer Studio – Vault C (Isolation Booths), Freiburg
Recording Dates: February–April 1974
Total Runtime: 54:13
Genres: Dub-Damaged Krautrock · Post-Punk Groove Deconstruction · Tape Noise · Industrial Psych · Proto-Electronic Improv
SIGNAL PRESSURE REVIEW
Sub-Vokal Raster doesn’t analyze language—it beats it half to death with rhythm and feedback. ZONENDUB weren’t academic tinkerers; they were a four-person noise cell chasing the point where dub discipline and German repetition start to melt. What came out of Herzkammer Vault C that winter isn’t an experiment—it’s a jam that got electrocuted halfway through.
Side A (Primary Mutations) feels like a band trying to lock into a groove while the floor gives way. Rasterpunkt I lurches forward on a bassline that keeps fighting the beat, Krahne’s delay-blurred drums coughing reverb with every snare hit. By Rasterpunkt II the tape echo starts looping into itself, creating a sluggish pulse you could almost dance to if you didn’t trip over it first. Zungenverlust closes the side in a swirl of muffled vocal drones and flanged guitar scrape—half dub séance, half factory hum.
Flip to Feedback Intervals and the air thickens. Stammzelle rides a minimal funk-doom figure; KUNO’s bass grinds under a filtered hi-hat rhythm while Kyro Mahl drops shards of metallic percussion like broken fixtures. Then Sprachverwehung opens into deep-space dub, the delay tails collapsing into tape hiss until the beat dissolves entirely. The title cut, Sub Vokal Raster, claws its way back with a motorik stomp—Svein’s harmonium pulse faintly audible under the fuzz—while Mikrotonaler Restkörper ends everything in a short, distorted scream of micro-pitched feedback that sounds more punk than theory.
There’s energy here—ugly, human, physical. The mix breathes heat and distortion. You can hear hands on faders, feet kicking pedals, someone shouting off-mic. It’s dub stripped of its cool, krautrock stripped of its geometry, rebuilt as a kind of industrial funk séance. If Midnight Proxy Transit was the sound of a band finding the groove in rubble, Sub-Vokal Raster is the sound of one refusing to stop dancing in the wreckage.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION & RECORDING SPECIFICATIONS
• Recording Setup: Live ensemble tracking → tape-delay & loop layering through modified vocal transducers
• Tape Format: UHER Variocord 263, ¼″ tape at variable speed
• Microphones: Low-gain dampened diaphragm vocal mic; bone-conduction chin-strap mic on “Stammzelle”
• Hybrid W-1 deck (built from CR-1 core)
• Processing Chain: Custom EMS-derived tone interpolator; defective patch-bay cross-routing; cassette head-scrubber loop; ENV-MAP envelope shaper for dub-gate modulation
• Mixing: Direct-to-stereo, no post EQ
• Mastering: Gernot Wolff, Schwarzschild Vinyl Works (1974)
TRACKLIST + CUE LOG
Side A – Primary Mutations (25:40)
1․ Rasterpunkt I – 07:32
2․ Rasterpunkt II – 06:38
3․ Rasterpunkt III – 06:26
4․ Zungenverlust – 05:04
Side B – Feedback Intervals (28:33)
5․ Stammzelle – 08:56
6․ Sprachverwehung – 08:04
7․ Sub Vokal Raster – 08:01
8․ Mikrotonaler Restkörper – 03:32
Total Runtime: 54:13
PHYSICAL RELEASE DETAILS
• Vinyl: 160 g black; matte-black label with inner-ring AW-013 engrave
• Sleeve: Reverse-board matte jacket, silver-ink offset print
• Inner Sleeve: Hand-sprayed grid pattern — silver, grey, or rare white variants
• Insert: Transparency “Raster Grid (Zone/Voicing Overlay)” annotated in red by Krahne
• Variants: 22 early copies with white grid spray; 1 test pressing with handwritten label
SUBSEQUENT FORMATS & VARIANTS
• 1975 – Cassette Run: ≈66 slow-speed dubs in kraftboard sleeves; pencil mic-diagram inserts
• 1998 – DAT Conversion (Otto Meer): right-channel vocal swell corrected on Segment IV
• 2004 – Bootleg CD-R (UK): Voice Texture Studies 1976; artificial delay added; disowned by band 2005
ARCHIVAL STATUS
• ~140 originals confirmed in collector circulation
• Outtakes “Rasterpunkt IV–V” recovered 1995 (still unreleased)
• ≈40 copies with minor pan imbalance on Side B due to lacquer migration
EPILOGUE
Almost fifty years on, Sub-Vokal Raster still crackles like a basement jam that never cooled. Its DNA runs through Metal Box, Tago Mago, and early Cabaret Voltaire—a fuzzed-out bridge between kraut precision and dub disintegration. Krahne and Kyro trade off like a rhythm section testing gravity; Furch’s raw engineering keeps every loop just this side of collapse.
It’s not about philosophy—it’s about tone, delay, and nerve. One of the dirtiest, most physical records in the Aurora Weltklang line, and still one of the most contagious.
FOR LISTENERS OF:
• This Heat – Health and Efficiency
• Public Image Ltd – Metal Box
• Faust – The Faust Tapes
• African Head Charge – Environmental Studies
• Dome – 1 + 2
credits
released July 1, 1974
• Mika Krahne — drums, percussion, guitar, delay-matrix design, tape edits
• KUNO — bass, guitar, reeds, drones
• Flinch — bass, guitar, percussion, drones
• Bernd “Kyro” Mahl — electronics, percussion, drones, bass
• Agnes Furch — engineering advisor, saturation & balance review
(Instruments rotated each take to keep the energy unstable.)
license
all rights reserved
Label: Aurora Weltklang
Catalog No.: AW-013
Format: LP, 160 g vinyl with stencil-sprayed inner sleeve + transparency overlay insert
Release Date: July 1974
Edition: 311 copies (numbered, all hand-sprayed variants)
Recording Location: Herzkammer Studio – Vault C (Isolation Booths), Freiburg
Recording Dates: February–April 1974
Total Runtime: 54:13
Genres: Dub-Damaged Krautrock · Post-Punk Groove Deconstruction · Tape Noise · Industrial Psych · Proto-Electronic Improv
SIGNAL PRESSURE REVIEW
Sub-Vokal Raster doesn’t analyze language—it beats it half to death with rhythm and feedback. ZONENDUB weren’t academic tinkerers; they were a four-person noise cell chasing the point where dub discipline and German repetition start to melt. What came out of Herzkammer Vault C that winter isn’t an experiment—it’s a jam that got electrocuted halfway through.
Side A (Primary Mutations) feels like a band trying to lock into a groove while the floor gives way. Rasterpunkt I lurches forward on a bassline that keeps fighting the beat, Krahne’s delay-blurred drums coughing reverb with every snare hit. By Rasterpunkt II the tape echo starts looping into itself, creating a sluggish pulse you could almost dance to if you didn’t trip over it first. Zungenverlust closes the side in a swirl of muffled vocal drones and flanged guitar scrape—half dub séance, half factory hum.
Flip to Feedback Intervals and the air thickens. Stammzelle rides a minimal funk-doom figure; KUNO’s bass grinds under a filtered hi-hat rhythm while Kyro Mahl drops shards of metallic percussion like broken fixtures. Then Sprachverwehung opens into deep-space dub, the delay tails collapsing into tape hiss until the beat dissolves entirely. The title cut, Sub Vokal Raster, claws its way back with a motorik stomp—Svein’s harmonium pulse faintly audible under the fuzz—while Mikrotonaler Restkörper ends everything in a short, distorted scream of micro-pitched feedback that sounds more punk than theory.
There’s energy here—ugly, human, physical. The mix breathes heat and distortion. You can hear hands on faders, feet kicking pedals, someone shouting off-mic. It’s dub stripped of its cool, krautrock stripped of its geometry, rebuilt as a kind of industrial funk séance. If Midnight Proxy Transit was the sound of a band finding the groove in rubble, Sub-Vokal Raster is the sound of one refusing to stop dancing in the wreckage.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION & RECORDING SPECIFICATIONS
• Recording Setup: Live ensemble tracking → tape-delay & loop layering through modified vocal transducers
• Tape Format: UHER Variocord 263, ¼″ tape at variable speed
• Microphones: Low-gain dampened diaphragm vocal mic; bone-conduction chin-strap mic on “Stammzelle”
• Hybrid W-1 deck (built from CR-1 core)
• Processing Chain: Custom EMS-derived tone interpolator; defective patch-bay cross-routing; cassette head-scrubber loop; ENV-MAP envelope shaper for dub-gate modulation
• Mixing: Direct-to-stereo, no post EQ
• Mastering: Gernot Wolff, Schwarzschild Vinyl Works (1974)
TRACKLIST + CUE LOG
Side A – Primary Mutations (25:40)
1․ Rasterpunkt I – 07:32
2․ Rasterpunkt II – 06:38
3․ Rasterpunkt III – 06:26
4․ Zungenverlust – 05:04
Side B – Feedback Intervals (28:33)
5․ Stammzelle – 08:56
6․ Sprachverwehung – 08:04
7․ Sub Vokal Raster – 08:01
8․ Mikrotonaler Restkörper – 03:32
Total Runtime: 54:13
PHYSICAL RELEASE DETAILS
• Vinyl: 160 g black; matte-black label with inner-ring AW-013 engrave
• Sleeve: Reverse-board matte jacket, silver-ink offset print
• Inner Sleeve: Hand-sprayed grid pattern — silver, grey, or rare white variants
• Insert: Transparency “Raster Grid (Zone/Voicing Overlay)” annotated in red by Krahne
• Variants: 22 early copies with white grid spray; 1 test pressing with handwritten label
SUBSEQUENT FORMATS & VARIANTS
• 1975 – Cassette Run: ≈66 slow-speed dubs in kraftboard sleeves; pencil mic-diagram inserts
• 1998 – DAT Conversion (Otto Meer): right-channel vocal swell corrected on Segment IV
• 2004 – Bootleg CD-R (UK): Voice Texture Studies 1976; artificial delay added; disowned by band 2005
ARCHIVAL STATUS
• ~140 originals confirmed in collector circulation
• Outtakes “Rasterpunkt IV–V” recovered 1995 (still unreleased)
• ≈40 copies with minor pan imbalance on Side B due to lacquer migration
EPILOGUE
Almost fifty years on, Sub-Vokal Raster still crackles like a basement jam that never cooled. Its DNA runs through Metal Box, Tago Mago, and early Cabaret Voltaire—a fuzzed-out bridge between kraut precision and dub disintegration. Krahne and Kyro trade off like a rhythm section testing gravity; Furch’s raw engineering keeps every loop just this side of collapse.
It’s not about philosophy—it’s about tone, delay, and nerve. One of the dirtiest, most physical records in the Aurora Weltklang line, and still one of the most contagious.
FOR LISTENERS OF:
• This Heat – Health and Efficiency
• Public Image Ltd – Metal Box
• Faust – The Faust Tapes
• African Head Charge – Environmental Studies
• Dome – 1 + 2
credits
released July 1, 1974
• Mika Krahne — drums, percussion, guitar, delay-matrix design, tape edits
• KUNO — bass, guitar, reeds, drones
• Flinch — bass, guitar, percussion, drones
• Bernd “Kyro” Mahl — electronics, percussion, drones, bass
• Agnes Furch — engineering advisor, saturation & balance review
(Instruments rotated each take to keep the energy unstable.)
license
all rights reserved
