Päfgens — Aspect of What
Päfgens is an ambient shoegaze/post-rock duo with music based on loops, with several mostly self-released recordings over the past 10 years. Aspect of What is their new album, released this year in 2024 on Mappa, with eight tracks totalling forty four minutes
A filtered murmur of soothing but vaguely melancholic piano is soon joined by vaguely melodic guitar string noise and harmonized half-formed solo licks. A sort of brooding mood is established, and it seems that the style here is an instrumentally sourced soundscape that is so thoroughly processed that its origins are not obvious, and any rhythmic qualities are totally digested into luminescent chordal drones.
The 2nd piece "Particles" is a great, triumphant wall of sound that has been covered with a heavy blanket, filtered into submission. A warm, rich chord with an organ-like tone resounds throughout several layers of the mix, encircled with rustling wind and the sounds of nature. A shimmer of sunlight seems to refract through it.
The more I listen, the more it seems nearly every sound heard here could be cleverly processed guitar, fully explored here for all its luminescent, resonant tonal pockets, with spiralling contrails of delay. Though the liner notes do mention synths and singing bowls, it's clear that ambient guitar progressions are the native language of the group, and these tracks are painfully tragic, cinematic post rock tunes as heard from underwater. The highly processed tones have a delicious, quivering subtlety in the way they glow, with faint hints of harsh overdrive sanded smooth.
The feeling is rainy and uncertain as we pass the album's halfway point with "Looking For Joy"... it would seem from the tone of this piece that joy has not been found. The process of electronically deconstructing their style of post rock has left it without the sense of purposeful dynamism it originally possessed... and we are left to wallow and meander helpless in a delirious, muted stupor.
At no point in the recording does it start to amass momentum, and the whole album a soft daydream that disappears from the eyelids as soon as one gets up with a decisive jolt. It's a high quality piece for that sleepy wavelength, though. Those enamoured with Sigur Ros and arctic/cold weather music should be fascinated with the atmosphere of this disk as well, and satisfied with familiar e-bow tones. It could also potentially please fans of orchestral and instrumentally sourced ambient like Kyle Bobby Dunn or Stars of the Lid, though falls short of the symphonic, lucid elegance of these.