AW-015: ZIRKEL 92 – Kreismikrophonie
Label: Aurora Weltklang
Catalog No.: AW-015
Format: Cassette (1974) / LP Reissue (1985) / Digital (2025)
Recorded: April–September 1974
Released: November 1974
Edition: 111 hand-numbered tapes
Locations: Herzkammer Studio Auxiliary B · Kirchheim Lodge #4 · Kassel University Sound Lab
Runtime: 36:58
Genres: Krautrock · Drone Rock · Electroacoustic Improvisation · Process Minimalism

SIGNAL PRESSURE REVIEW
Kreismikrophonie is what happens when a rehearsal tips into feedback and nobody pulls back. ZIRKEL 92 weren’t performing—they were provoking the room. Multiple decks, unstable loops, and a signal chain that refuses to settle. The result feels less like music than a system pushed past tolerance.

Side A (Innenmotorik) opens with a non-human pulse. Furch’s filter rig grinds under bursts of percussion, while Meer’s guitar—run through a damaged Echolette—flickers between tone and machinery. The groove never locks. It surges, breaks, and restarts. Svein’s bass sits low in the mix, holding everything together without ever stepping forward.

Side B (Außenverschiebung) stretches into a single pressure build. Voices, radio fragments, and feedback loops fold into each other until boundaries disappear. Duval’s tape-head percussion clicks like a counter, Dorn’s synth drifts out of phase, and the entire structure threatens collapse before stabilizing again.

This isn’t ambient. It’s instability captured live. Every dropout, flutter, and gain shift stays. The tape feels improvised but controlled—like a system under stress that refuses to fail.

TRACKLIST

Side A — Innenmotorik (18:14)
1․ Kreisstück – 18:14

Side B — Außenverschiebung (18:44)
2․ Zentralumschaltung – 18:44

Total runtime: 36:58

SOURCE & CAPTURE NOTES
• Live-to-cassette recording (Tandberg Model 12), no overdubs
• Direct mic/speaker loop system with four-deck phase alignment
• Contact mic arrays, rotating omni, feedback ring configuration
• W-1 deck + SYN-4 filter bank
• No EQ or mastering; gain instability preserved

PACKAGING & EDITION
• Clear-shell Type I cassette; kraftboard slip with embossed glyph
• Hand-numbered (111 copies)
• Foldout schematic: rotary delay routing diagram (Furch)
• Vellum insert: circular speech grid (Svein)
• Some copies include voltage charts and mic-spacing overlays

AVAILABILITY & VARIANTS
• 1976 Herzkammer Loop Series (~52 mono copies)
• 1985 LP reissue (333 copies, Schwarzschild)
• 1997 archive transfer from cassette #049
• 2004 UK bootleg (Loopspeak Series), miscredited
• 2025 digital archive remaster with expanded PDF

EPILOGUE
Kreismikrophonie still sounds like the moment a jam slips out of control and keeps going. No riffs, no center—just a feedback engine running on instinct. What comes out isn’t structure or theory. It’s pressure.

Rough, uneven, and alive.

FOR LISTENERS OF:
• NEU! – NEU! ’75
• Cluster – Cluster ’71
• Faust – Faust IV (rehearsal material)
• Harmonia – live recordings
• MIRRORDEN – Commune Mirror Studies

CREDITS
Agnes Furch — filters, sequencing
Mika Krahne — drums, shortwave
Greta Dorn — synth, routing
Otto Meer — guitar, loopback
Hennix Duval — tape-head percussion
Loreta Svein — bass, mic mapping
Flinch — reel operations
Gernot Wolff — engineering

Released November 1, 1974
All rights reserved.