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. A great example of their sound is the album Aspect of What, released by mappa label in 2024.
The music is sometimes accompanied by vocals, sometimes it is completely instrumental — 2026’s Westend moves between both, built around Jana’s voice on tracks like “Poprad” before closing on a fully instrumental title track. 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, Aspect of What (2024) marked a pensive development for Berlin-based Slovak duo Päfgens – Jana Drábeková Kočišová and Filip Drábek – a thread picked up again on Westend (2026).
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Liner notes by Tristan Bath about Aspect of What
“...suitably uplifting and seemingly made without ego...”
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Selected press quotes
On Westend (2026)
"I am blown away by the beauty of this release."
"Beautiful but also utterly melancholic, hopeful but dark like an autumn day."
"Something of Grouper's charm resonates here — a sleepy tempo, a wistful mood."
Jakub Knera, Mint Magazine (transl. from Polish)
"A much more wholesome and even more intimate collaborative album."
On Der Regen & earlier
"...a calm that could probably best be described as meditative precision."
Kristoffer Cornils, Field Notes — on Der Regen (2022)
"Päfgens shifted through their musical personas with ease."
James Thornhill, Under the Radar — live at Sharpe Festival (2023)
"The subtlety is the keyword here."
Łabandzi Śpiew — on Der Regen (2022)
"An inspired and spontaneous aural stream-of-consciousness."
Monique Woolen-Lewis, Pleiadesounds — on Arthrolyse (2020)