Nature-inspired experimental songwriter - slowly unfolding psychedelic hymnals
Multi-instrumentalist and member of Meadowsilver, Burd Ellen and Electroscope
Pefkin is the alter ego of Gayle Brogan, creator of slowly-unfolding, ritualistic hymnals that draw heavily on the landscape and natural world.
Pefkin emerged after the retro-futuristic psych / electronic duo Electroscope went into hibernation in 2000. Her first solo show was supporting Pram in spring of that year. Influenced by Nico, Hood, Movietone and Syd Barrett, she created a fragmentary, more stripped-down version of Electroscope’s bedroom psychedelia but retreated from live performance in 2001. Pefkin has released over 10 albums on labels such as Morc, Wild Silence, Reverb Worship, Digitalis, Pseudoarcana and Siren Wire as well as several sold-out lathe cuts on Sonido Polifonico. Pefkin returned to live performance in 2013 and has played across the UK and Europe, including Fano Free Folk Festival and Woolf II in 2019. She most recently toured in May 2023 with Delphine Dora and Sophie Cooper.
Her sound comprises a mesmerising and enigmatic layering of vocals, violin, synths, zither, electronics, found objects and field recordings.
Pefkin’s music has received comparisons to Coil, Popul Vuh and Nico.
Her most recent releases were a 10" "Observations of Land and Sea" on Sonido Polifonico and an LP "The Light Bends Inwards" on Muzamuza.
Gayle is also half of innovative folk duo Burd Ellen, as well as a member of electric psych-folk trio Meadowsilver. She has recorded an album with Heartwood Institute's Jonathan Sharp under the name Greenshank, to be released in autumn 2023 on Woodford Halse, as well as an album about bird folklore with Alison O'Donnell, to be released in the future.
Spooked-out twilight listening that is both unsettling and compelling, drawing you into a private world. (Ed Pinsent / Sound Projector)
Something akin to what it must have been like hearing Nico's 'Marble Index' when it was released; alien yet curiously familiar, beautiful yet stark, hypnotic yet troubling. (Grey Malkin / Active Listener)
Gayle co-promotes a series of gigs in a Tudor museum in Sheffield with Paul Cross of Sonido Polifonico.
