Formed in 2013 as a lo-fi shoegaze project by Slovak couple Jana Drábeková Kočišová and Filip Drábek, Päfgens are slowly shifting from songwriting towards immersive soundscapes. The drone experiment started as an exercise at home and turned into a fully formed project, where guitar and bass are looped into multitude of layers and result in ethereal drones with shoegazy feel and subtle melodies. Best example is their most recent album Aspect of What released by mappa label in 2024.
The music is sometimes accompanied by vocals, sometimes it is completely instrumental. Quite often, there are field recordings or other instruments besides bass and guitar. Slowcore songs and semi-improvised drones may seem like two completely different sonic worlds, but Päfgens are merging them with ease into an atmospheric and hissy blend.
The learning process is just as much an act of healing as betterment. The enabling of solutions through sheer willpower and openness to discovery, or a noble mission, never completed. In that spirit, the latest album by Berlin-based Slovak duo Päfgens – comprising Jana Drábeková Kočišová and Filip Drábek – represents a pensive development for the project.
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Liner notes by Tristan Bath about Aspect of What
Drifting from their lo-fi shoegaze beginnings, Päfgens drone-infused soundscapes have become increasingly immersive and expressive “framed improvisations,” where spontaneous passages are captured, then revisited with fresh layers upon layers over the course of months, breathing and evolving naturally, mirroring the unpredictability of nature. Songforms have all but melted away, with ethereal guitars and bass nestling up against field-recorded sounds, synth beds, percussion, and singing bowl tones.
The framed improvisation on ‘Aspect of What’ explores love and loss, relishing both the joy and melancholy of paying tribute to Filip’s late ethnologist grandmother, Božena Filová (1926-2020). Her voice opens track 2, ‘Particles’, speaking of the humble desire to “help the people in the rural environment”, and the goal of “uplifting people to better living through education”. The album’s emotionally charged approach to improvisation is suitably uplifting and seemingly made without ego, the couple melting away into the flitting wall of rustling drones and heavenly fuzz. Even at their most serrated (the groaning guitar amp squall underpinning ‘Journey’) or when surrounded by chiming bells, clocks and bowls (‘Around the Clock’), Päfgens is ready to listen, rest, learn, and improve, extracting and nurturing hidden abstract emotion in every piece, plundering something universal and teachable from very personal depths.
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Selected press quotes
Kristoffer Cornils of Field Notes on Der Regen LP (2022):
“With an incomparable calm that could probably best be described as meditative precision, they predominantly interweave guitar melodies and soundscapes, only rarely adding concrete rhythms, as in the track »Sanddornebene«. Instead, the driving urgency of this music arises from the interplay of disparate elements, which places this album in a tradition that ranges from early minimal music to post-rock.”
James Thornhill (Under the Radar) about the concert at Sharpe Festival 2023:
Back down in the basement confines, Päfgens shifted through their musical personas with ease. Whether playing lush, slowcore tunes, soaring drone numbers or electronic shoegaze the duo created a singular joyous tone. Melding songs together with intermittent soundscapes, creating an almost constant flow, Pafgens is clearly a band that understands the huge aural world they have created and are inviting us all to reside there with them. If Low, Maps or Divide & Dissolve do it for you, Pafgens are worthy of exploring.
Łabandzi Śpiew on Der Regen LP (2022)
With an incomparable calm that could probably best be described as meditative precision, they predominantly interweave guitar melodies and soundscapes, only rarely adding concrete rhythms, as in the track »Sanddoberne«. Instead, the driving urgency of this music arises from the interplay of disparate elements, which places this album in a tradition that ranges from early minimal music to post-rock.
Monique Woolen-Lewis (Pleiadesounds.com) on Arthrolyse EP (2020)
Entirely improvised, Päfgens’ latest music takes a departure from their particularly breathy/jangley brand of indie ambient, opting for an inspired and spontaneous aural stream-of-consciousness. Recording a myriad of instruments through Ableton, and onto a tape recorder creates a sort of super 8 grain and warmth to the whole soundscape, adding an organic depth and dimension to their ever loosening song structures.