AW-010: Loreta Svein - Spiegelzungen
- 1Glaslinie
- 2Zungennebel
- 3Zwischenlaut
- 4Traumkern
- 5Stimmhaut
- 6Letzte Spur
AW-010
•
Open edition
AW-010: LORETA SVEIN – Spiegelzungen
Label: Aurora Weltklang
Catalog No.: AW-010
Format: LP (180 g black vinyl), matte outer with translucent overwrap + metallic screenprint insert
Original Release Date: December 1974
Edition: 222 copies (hand-numbered with symbolic glyphs)
Recording Location: Herzkammer Studio, Vault E (Vocal Isolation Chamber), Freiburg
Recording Dates: July–August 1974
Total Runtime: 39:31
Genres: Experimental Vocal · Vocal Drone Rock · Proto-Punk Minimalism · Acid-Folk Noise · Electroacoustic Improv
SIGNAL PRESSURE REVIEW
If MIRRORDEN was the pulse of the communes, Spiegelzungen was the shockwave that came after. Loreta Svein’s only solo LP is a strange hybrid—part vocal ritual, part proto-punk exorcism, part studio accident—and fifty years later it still sounds like nothing else. Recorded over the course of two humid months inside Herzkammer’s narrow Vault E, the album captures Svein pushing the limits of her voice until it becomes an instrument of distortion, rhythm, and resistance.
This isn’t some ethereal vocal experiment. Spiegelzungen grinds and breathes like a living thing.
Side A (Phase I: Soft Occultation) hits hard right from Glaslinie, a piercing tone crashing into Svein’s doubled vocal layers, halfway between chant and scream. Zungennebel runs the voice through flickering lamp circuitry and spring-tension drones—imagine Nico on a malfunctioning intercom. Zwischenlaut provides the first hint of structure, Jori Tetschel’s bass pulsing underneath Svein’s wordless phoneme loops like a primitive kraut groove left to rust in silence.
Side B (Phase II: Inner Reverberation) goes darker and deeper. Traumkern sprawls for ten minutes, the vocals now joined by bowed glass, guitar fragments, and Karl Lüdenscheidt’s electronics forming a haze that hovers between drone and doom. Stimmhaut strips the setup back to just voice and air—Svein rasping, whispering, gasping, her breath hitting the tape like percussion. The closer, Letzte Spur, is barely there: a short, brittle melody that collapses into silence before you can grasp it.
What makes Spiegelzungen hit isn’t theory—it’s presence. Svein’s sound is physical, confrontational, weirdly intimate. You can hear her move around the mic, shifting distance to sculpt texture instead of tone. It’s not pretty, and that’s the point. This is performance as confrontation, not meditation.
For all its intensity, there’s something grounding in its minimalism. Between the distortion and feedback, you can still catch traces of folk melody and early punk nerve. It’s an album that doesn’t just break rules—it pretends the rules were never written.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION & RECORDING SPECIFICATIONS
• Recorder: Grundig TK27 open-reel, 3.75 ips
• Microphone: Modified wall-mounted Sennheiser MD421 (mono)
• Hybrid W-1 deck (built from CR-1 core)
• Signal Path: Direct mono chain → quartz bowl oscillator pitch-shifted by hand proximity
• Aux Inputs: Bowed glass tone dishes; ceramic spring-loop pad; lamp-flicker filter trigger
• Recording Method: Single-take vocal passes, no overdubs; mono splice edits only between “inhalation” and “resonance” sections
• Mix & Mastering: Agnes Furch – direct-to-lacquer flat pass
• Pressing: Schwarzschild Vinyl Works, Freiburg
TRACKLIST + CUE LOG
Side A – Phase I: Soft Occultation (19:57)
1․ Glaslinie (Glassline) – 06:40
2․ Zungennebel (Tongue Fog) – 07:19
3․ Zwischenlaut (In Between Voice) – 05:58
Side B – Phase II: Inner Reverberation (19:34)
4․ Traumkern (Dream Core) – 10:05
5․ Stimmhaut (Voice Skin) – 06:01
6․ Letzte Spur (Final Trace) – 03:28
Total Runtime: 39:31
INSERTS & VISUAL EPHEMERA
• Semi-translucent tracing vellum insert with metallic spiral glyph and Svein’s handwritten micro-notations
• Handwritten note (varies by copy): “Spoken only once. Heard forever.”
• Inner sleeve: Poly-lined, infused with myrrh before assembly
• Numbering: Each copy sigil-marked in lieu of numerals
PHYSICAL RELEASE DETAILS
• Vinyl: 180 g black; matte-gray center labels with hand-inked spiral glyph
• Deadwax: Verloren, nicht stumm. (“Lost, not mute.”)
• Outer Sleeve: Heavy uncoated sand-tone stock; black foil-stamped spine; minimalist back panel with phrase “Only her breath is left.”
SUBSEQUENT FORMATS & VARIANTS
• 1975 Private Cassette Study Edition: ~33 copies for ZIRKEL 92 phoneme workshops; continuous play, no track index
• Insert Variant (Copy #006): “Zungenspiegel Schema” acetate with mirrored mouth diagrams
• 1997 Digital Vault Transfer (Duval Archive): Master reel preservation with extended resonance tail on Stimmhaut
• 2005 Bootleg CD-R (Italy): Vocal Refractions 1975; unauthorized stereo widening; miscredited to Agnes Furch
ARCHIVAL STATUS
• Fewer than 80 confirmed original LPs surviving
• Master reel preserved in Svein Archive (stable as of 2025)
• Additional materials: Room Pulse Fragment (3:28) and Zero Breath Study (5:09) restored for digital reissue
EPILOGUE
Even after half a century, Spiegelzungen still feels defiant. Svein turned the simplest resources—voice, mic, room—into a work that splits the difference between punk attitude and avant-garde purity. There’s no reverb trickery, no academic restraint, just a raw push toward what the human voice can do when stripped of song form.
You don’t “understand” Spiegelzungen; you weather it. Every inhale, scrape, and vowel hits like metal on stone. It’s a reminder that the line between performance and endurance can be razor thin, and that minimal doesn’t mean meek.
It’s a cornerstone not because it was loud, but because it refused to be quiet.
FOR LISTENERS OF:
• Diamanda Galás – The Litanies of Satan
• Meredith Monk – Dolmen Music
• Pauline Oliveros – Deep Listening
• Alvin Lucier – I Am Sitting in a Room
• Popol Vuh – Hosianna Mantra
credits
released December 1, 1974
• Loreta Svein — vocals, guitar, synth, drones
• Jori Tetschel — bass guitar, drones
• Karl Lüdenscheidt — guitar, electronics
• Otto Meer — technical design, percussion
• Gernot Wolff — recording engineer
all rights reserved
Label: Aurora Weltklang
Catalog No.: AW-010
Format: LP (180 g black vinyl), matte outer with translucent overwrap + metallic screenprint insert
Original Release Date: December 1974
Edition: 222 copies (hand-numbered with symbolic glyphs)
Recording Location: Herzkammer Studio, Vault E (Vocal Isolation Chamber), Freiburg
Recording Dates: July–August 1974
Total Runtime: 39:31
Genres: Experimental Vocal · Vocal Drone Rock · Proto-Punk Minimalism · Acid-Folk Noise · Electroacoustic Improv
SIGNAL PRESSURE REVIEW
If MIRRORDEN was the pulse of the communes, Spiegelzungen was the shockwave that came after. Loreta Svein’s only solo LP is a strange hybrid—part vocal ritual, part proto-punk exorcism, part studio accident—and fifty years later it still sounds like nothing else. Recorded over the course of two humid months inside Herzkammer’s narrow Vault E, the album captures Svein pushing the limits of her voice until it becomes an instrument of distortion, rhythm, and resistance.
This isn’t some ethereal vocal experiment. Spiegelzungen grinds and breathes like a living thing.
Side A (Phase I: Soft Occultation) hits hard right from Glaslinie, a piercing tone crashing into Svein’s doubled vocal layers, halfway between chant and scream. Zungennebel runs the voice through flickering lamp circuitry and spring-tension drones—imagine Nico on a malfunctioning intercom. Zwischenlaut provides the first hint of structure, Jori Tetschel’s bass pulsing underneath Svein’s wordless phoneme loops like a primitive kraut groove left to rust in silence.
Side B (Phase II: Inner Reverberation) goes darker and deeper. Traumkern sprawls for ten minutes, the vocals now joined by bowed glass, guitar fragments, and Karl Lüdenscheidt’s electronics forming a haze that hovers between drone and doom. Stimmhaut strips the setup back to just voice and air—Svein rasping, whispering, gasping, her breath hitting the tape like percussion. The closer, Letzte Spur, is barely there: a short, brittle melody that collapses into silence before you can grasp it.
What makes Spiegelzungen hit isn’t theory—it’s presence. Svein’s sound is physical, confrontational, weirdly intimate. You can hear her move around the mic, shifting distance to sculpt texture instead of tone. It’s not pretty, and that’s the point. This is performance as confrontation, not meditation.
For all its intensity, there’s something grounding in its minimalism. Between the distortion and feedback, you can still catch traces of folk melody and early punk nerve. It’s an album that doesn’t just break rules—it pretends the rules were never written.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION & RECORDING SPECIFICATIONS
• Recorder: Grundig TK27 open-reel, 3.75 ips
• Microphone: Modified wall-mounted Sennheiser MD421 (mono)
• Hybrid W-1 deck (built from CR-1 core)
• Signal Path: Direct mono chain → quartz bowl oscillator pitch-shifted by hand proximity
• Aux Inputs: Bowed glass tone dishes; ceramic spring-loop pad; lamp-flicker filter trigger
• Recording Method: Single-take vocal passes, no overdubs; mono splice edits only between “inhalation” and “resonance” sections
• Mix & Mastering: Agnes Furch – direct-to-lacquer flat pass
• Pressing: Schwarzschild Vinyl Works, Freiburg
TRACKLIST + CUE LOG
Side A – Phase I: Soft Occultation (19:57)
1․ Glaslinie (Glassline) – 06:40
2․ Zungennebel (Tongue Fog) – 07:19
3․ Zwischenlaut (In Between Voice) – 05:58
Side B – Phase II: Inner Reverberation (19:34)
4․ Traumkern (Dream Core) – 10:05
5․ Stimmhaut (Voice Skin) – 06:01
6․ Letzte Spur (Final Trace) – 03:28
Total Runtime: 39:31
INSERTS & VISUAL EPHEMERA
• Semi-translucent tracing vellum insert with metallic spiral glyph and Svein’s handwritten micro-notations
• Handwritten note (varies by copy): “Spoken only once. Heard forever.”
• Inner sleeve: Poly-lined, infused with myrrh before assembly
• Numbering: Each copy sigil-marked in lieu of numerals
PHYSICAL RELEASE DETAILS
• Vinyl: 180 g black; matte-gray center labels with hand-inked spiral glyph
• Deadwax: Verloren, nicht stumm. (“Lost, not mute.”)
• Outer Sleeve: Heavy uncoated sand-tone stock; black foil-stamped spine; minimalist back panel with phrase “Only her breath is left.”
SUBSEQUENT FORMATS & VARIANTS
• 1975 Private Cassette Study Edition: ~33 copies for ZIRKEL 92 phoneme workshops; continuous play, no track index
• Insert Variant (Copy #006): “Zungenspiegel Schema” acetate with mirrored mouth diagrams
• 1997 Digital Vault Transfer (Duval Archive): Master reel preservation with extended resonance tail on Stimmhaut
• 2005 Bootleg CD-R (Italy): Vocal Refractions 1975; unauthorized stereo widening; miscredited to Agnes Furch
ARCHIVAL STATUS
• Fewer than 80 confirmed original LPs surviving
• Master reel preserved in Svein Archive (stable as of 2025)
• Additional materials: Room Pulse Fragment (3:28) and Zero Breath Study (5:09) restored for digital reissue
EPILOGUE
Even after half a century, Spiegelzungen still feels defiant. Svein turned the simplest resources—voice, mic, room—into a work that splits the difference between punk attitude and avant-garde purity. There’s no reverb trickery, no academic restraint, just a raw push toward what the human voice can do when stripped of song form.
You don’t “understand” Spiegelzungen; you weather it. Every inhale, scrape, and vowel hits like metal on stone. It’s a reminder that the line between performance and endurance can be razor thin, and that minimal doesn’t mean meek.
It’s a cornerstone not because it was loud, but because it refused to be quiet.
FOR LISTENERS OF:
• Diamanda Galás – The Litanies of Satan
• Meredith Monk – Dolmen Music
• Pauline Oliveros – Deep Listening
• Alvin Lucier – I Am Sitting in a Room
• Popol Vuh – Hosianna Mantra
credits
released December 1, 1974
• Loreta Svein — vocals, guitar, synth, drones
• Jori Tetschel — bass guitar, drones
• Karl Lüdenscheidt — guitar, electronics
• Otto Meer — technical design, percussion
• Gernot Wolff — recording engineer
all rights reserved
