“My recent work is about the potential for transformation, finding or creating a space for that to take place.“
As Pefkin, Gayle Brogan crafts slow-burning, devotional soundscapes that feel less composed than conjured – ritualistic folk hymns steeped in the rhythms of landscape and seasonal shift. Also known for her work in Burd Ellen, Greenshank, and Meadowsilver, Brogan’s solo output exists in a more liminal space, where drone, voice, and texture dissolve into something elemental.
Her latest album, The Rescoring, was written in the autumn of 2023, as she prepared to uproot from Glasgow to Sheffield. Its three longform pieces map the psychic and physical contours of change. Working with a deliberately restricted toolkit – synth, voice, and viola, an instrument she had never played before – Brogan embraced immediacy, layering each track in a single take.
Each composition functions as a kind of sonic sigil: one piece reflects on the land she left behind, another on the place she was moving to, and the final track, Change, contemplates transformation itself. The result is a record that doesn’t just document transition but enacts it, lingering in the fertile instability between past and future.
What drew you to the viola as an instrument for this album, especially as it was your first time playing it?
I can answer that in two words – John Cale. I’ve played violin since I was 7 but always focused on the lower end of that instrument, and more recently manipulating that sound by pitch-shifting it down. It’s obviously similar to play but you need to extend your fingers more. I love all the scratch and scrape sounds, and the viola just does it better. I suspect cello does it even better but that’s more of a workout for the fingers and wouldn’t fit in my car!.
The Predatory Wasp 