AW-011: MIRRORDEN - Ghost Kitchen Psalm
- 1Potlid Invocation
- 2Steam Psalm (March 19)
- 3After Ladle Song
- 4Kuno's Song
- 5Psalm For Low Flame
- 6Spoken Through Drain Slit
- 7Force Field (Improvisation)
AW-011
•
Open edition
AW-011: MIRRORDEN – Ghost Kitchen Psalm
Label: Aurora Weltklang
Catalog No.: AW-011
Format: Cassette-only (Type I Ferric)
Original Release Date: May 1973
Edition: Approx. 144 copies (hand-numbered)
Recording Location: Gewerbepark Süd, Freiburg – decommissioned industrial kitchen and breakroom annex
Recording Dates: March 18–21, 1973 (aligned with full moon cycle)
Total Runtime: 64:40
Genres: Kraut-Jazz Improv · Industrial Drone Rock · Tape-Ambient Folk · Electroacoustic Jam · Deserted-Space Psych
SIGNAL PRESSURE REVIEW
Ghost Kitchen Psalm might be the strangest MIRRORDEN tape of the early cycle—a four-day jam recorded in a shut-down industrial kitchen that somehow turned concrete and broken cookware into one of 1973’s most hypnotic underground records. Forget “site-specific sound art”; this is a psych jam accidentally born in a place that smelled like grease and rainwater.
Side A (Moon Psalm Sequence) kicks off with Potlid Invocation, a clang-and-drone opener that feels halfway between a Faust workshop and a tribal rehearsal gone wrong. Loreta Svein’s saxophone comes in hot, overblown and urgent, while Flinch works percussive fragments off pan lids and stray utensils. Steam Psalm (March 19) builds from low-end hum to full bloom, Duval’s bowed metal bass sounding like thunder under Svein’s cracked-voice keening. It’s industrial by accident, folk by temperament, krautrock by instinct. By the time After Ladle Song closes the side, things have drifted into a slow, motorized pulse—a groove that never locks but keeps circling like heat shimmer.
Flip the tape, and Dusk Recessional shows the group at their most melodic. KUNO’s Song is barely there—soft guitar and clarinet sketches like morning after chaos. Psalm for Low Flame crawls out of that calm, a ten-minute slow burn of whispered vocals and reverbed percussion, tension held by repetition. Then Spoken Through Drain Slit and Force Field (Improvisation) bring it home with twelve minutes of feedback shimmer and duct hum that feels less like music and more like weather captured to tape.
Unlike most of the Herzkammer recordings, this isn’t academic or ritual—it’s improvised survival music. Svein, Duval, and crew weren’t performing for documentation; they were keeping a pulse going inside an abandoned space, finding rhythm in the echo.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION & RECORDING SPECIFICATIONS
• Recorder: BASF LGR 30 ¼″ ferric reel, direct mono capture → live-dubbed to C60 Type I cassette
• Microphones: AKG D1000E (hanging central mic); contact mic inside stove cavity; CH-1 headphones wired as binaural mics
• RHY-1 pulse circuit converted to foot-trigger
• Signal Path: Playback routed through CR-400 field deck as improvised phase mixer
• Ambient Factors: Rainfall on metal roof; gas-line resonance under floor
• Mixing: Live mono print, no overdubs
• Engineer: Gernot Wolff
• Edit/Sequence: Mika Krahne
• 2004 Restoration: Elsa Trudering – EQ leveling and hiss preservation
TRACKLIST + CUE LOG
Side A – Moon Psalm Sequence (32:01)
1․ Potlid Invocation – 07:40
2․ Steam Psalm (March 19) – 13:27
3․ After Ladle Song – 10:54
Side B – Dusk Recessional (32:39)
4․ KUNO’s Song – 07:16
5․ Psalm for Low Flame – 10:14
6․ Spoken Through Drain Slit – 02:36
7․ Force Field (Improvisation) – 12:33
Total Runtime: 64:40
PHYSICAL RELEASE DETAILS
• Cassette Housing: Hand-sewn burlap pouch
• Seal: Indigo wax with AW glyph (hand-poured, irregular)
• Insert: Hand-numbered parchment with Kitchen Psalm Alignment Diagram
• Variants: Bundled with dried herbs or wax-crusted incense string
• Special Copies (~30): Slip reading “Do not listen during sun hour.”
SUBSEQUENT FORMATS & VARIANTS
• Test Cassette: Labeled “Psalm 3”, found 1997 (Cologne); longer duct-tone fade on final track
• Unissued Reels: “Rain Session” fragments lost from archive
• 2004 Digital Archive Reissue: Includes unused KUNO outtake
• 1980s Bootleg Circulation: Misattributed to ZIRKEL 92; re-traded as Vault Psalm I
ARCHIVAL STATUS
• ~38 confirmed original copies
• 2004 DAT transfer from intact reel
• Cross-referenced into MIRRORDEN / ZIRKEL 92 master log post-2000
EPILOGUE
Ghost Kitchen Psalm isn’t a sound experiment—it’s a jam caught in strange conditions. MIRRORDEN sound loose, heavy, and human here: Svein’s sax howls like early Don Cherry, Duval’s bass drones fill the room like a pulse generator, and Flinch keeps the rhythm dry and relentless. The tape’s rawness makes it feel more punk than academic—a kraut-folk improv captured before anyone started polishing their noise.
It’s messy, humid, and real: the sound of four musicians turning exhaustion into motion. Ghost Kitchen Psalm proves that even in a kitchen full of dust and hum, MIRRORDEN could still make electricity sing.
FOR LISTENERS OF:
• Faust – The Faust Tapes
• Taj Mahal Travellers – August 1974
• Tony Conrad & Faust – Outside the Dream Syndicate
• Loren Connors – Air
• AMM – The Crypt Sessions
credits
released May 1, 1973
• Loreta Svein — vocals, guitar, saxophone, brass bowl percussion
• Hennix Duval — bass, bowed tin canister, pedal drone, fragment vocals
• Flinch — drums, percussive debris, delay rods
• KUNO (guest) — guitar, clarinet
• Field Assistant: (unconfirmed) “MAHN”
all rights reserved
Label: Aurora Weltklang
Catalog No.: AW-011
Format: Cassette-only (Type I Ferric)
Original Release Date: May 1973
Edition: Approx. 144 copies (hand-numbered)
Recording Location: Gewerbepark Süd, Freiburg – decommissioned industrial kitchen and breakroom annex
Recording Dates: March 18–21, 1973 (aligned with full moon cycle)
Total Runtime: 64:40
Genres: Kraut-Jazz Improv · Industrial Drone Rock · Tape-Ambient Folk · Electroacoustic Jam · Deserted-Space Psych
SIGNAL PRESSURE REVIEW
Ghost Kitchen Psalm might be the strangest MIRRORDEN tape of the early cycle—a four-day jam recorded in a shut-down industrial kitchen that somehow turned concrete and broken cookware into one of 1973’s most hypnotic underground records. Forget “site-specific sound art”; this is a psych jam accidentally born in a place that smelled like grease and rainwater.
Side A (Moon Psalm Sequence) kicks off with Potlid Invocation, a clang-and-drone opener that feels halfway between a Faust workshop and a tribal rehearsal gone wrong. Loreta Svein’s saxophone comes in hot, overblown and urgent, while Flinch works percussive fragments off pan lids and stray utensils. Steam Psalm (March 19) builds from low-end hum to full bloom, Duval’s bowed metal bass sounding like thunder under Svein’s cracked-voice keening. It’s industrial by accident, folk by temperament, krautrock by instinct. By the time After Ladle Song closes the side, things have drifted into a slow, motorized pulse—a groove that never locks but keeps circling like heat shimmer.
Flip the tape, and Dusk Recessional shows the group at their most melodic. KUNO’s Song is barely there—soft guitar and clarinet sketches like morning after chaos. Psalm for Low Flame crawls out of that calm, a ten-minute slow burn of whispered vocals and reverbed percussion, tension held by repetition. Then Spoken Through Drain Slit and Force Field (Improvisation) bring it home with twelve minutes of feedback shimmer and duct hum that feels less like music and more like weather captured to tape.
Unlike most of the Herzkammer recordings, this isn’t academic or ritual—it’s improvised survival music. Svein, Duval, and crew weren’t performing for documentation; they were keeping a pulse going inside an abandoned space, finding rhythm in the echo.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION & RECORDING SPECIFICATIONS
• Recorder: BASF LGR 30 ¼″ ferric reel, direct mono capture → live-dubbed to C60 Type I cassette
• Microphones: AKG D1000E (hanging central mic); contact mic inside stove cavity; CH-1 headphones wired as binaural mics
• RHY-1 pulse circuit converted to foot-trigger
• Signal Path: Playback routed through CR-400 field deck as improvised phase mixer
• Ambient Factors: Rainfall on metal roof; gas-line resonance under floor
• Mixing: Live mono print, no overdubs
• Engineer: Gernot Wolff
• Edit/Sequence: Mika Krahne
• 2004 Restoration: Elsa Trudering – EQ leveling and hiss preservation
TRACKLIST + CUE LOG
Side A – Moon Psalm Sequence (32:01)
1․ Potlid Invocation – 07:40
2․ Steam Psalm (March 19) – 13:27
3․ After Ladle Song – 10:54
Side B – Dusk Recessional (32:39)
4․ KUNO’s Song – 07:16
5․ Psalm for Low Flame – 10:14
6․ Spoken Through Drain Slit – 02:36
7․ Force Field (Improvisation) – 12:33
Total Runtime: 64:40
PHYSICAL RELEASE DETAILS
• Cassette Housing: Hand-sewn burlap pouch
• Seal: Indigo wax with AW glyph (hand-poured, irregular)
• Insert: Hand-numbered parchment with Kitchen Psalm Alignment Diagram
• Variants: Bundled with dried herbs or wax-crusted incense string
• Special Copies (~30): Slip reading “Do not listen during sun hour.”
SUBSEQUENT FORMATS & VARIANTS
• Test Cassette: Labeled “Psalm 3”, found 1997 (Cologne); longer duct-tone fade on final track
• Unissued Reels: “Rain Session” fragments lost from archive
• 2004 Digital Archive Reissue: Includes unused KUNO outtake
• 1980s Bootleg Circulation: Misattributed to ZIRKEL 92; re-traded as Vault Psalm I
ARCHIVAL STATUS
• ~38 confirmed original copies
• 2004 DAT transfer from intact reel
• Cross-referenced into MIRRORDEN / ZIRKEL 92 master log post-2000
EPILOGUE
Ghost Kitchen Psalm isn’t a sound experiment—it’s a jam caught in strange conditions. MIRRORDEN sound loose, heavy, and human here: Svein’s sax howls like early Don Cherry, Duval’s bass drones fill the room like a pulse generator, and Flinch keeps the rhythm dry and relentless. The tape’s rawness makes it feel more punk than academic—a kraut-folk improv captured before anyone started polishing their noise.
It’s messy, humid, and real: the sound of four musicians turning exhaustion into motion. Ghost Kitchen Psalm proves that even in a kitchen full of dust and hum, MIRRORDEN could still make electricity sing.
FOR LISTENERS OF:
• Faust – The Faust Tapes
• Taj Mahal Travellers – August 1974
• Tony Conrad & Faust – Outside the Dream Syndicate
• Loren Connors – Air
• AMM – The Crypt Sessions
credits
released May 1, 1973
• Loreta Svein — vocals, guitar, saxophone, brass bowl percussion
• Hennix Duval — bass, bowed tin canister, pedal drone, fragment vocals
• Flinch — drums, percussive debris, delay rods
• KUNO (guest) — guitar, clarinet
• Field Assistant: (unconfirmed) “MAHN”
all rights reserved
