Pefkin / Roxane Métayer - Split LP

Shop favourite Roxane Métayer returns with a new record for Morc, sharing space with Ayrshire's Gayle Brogan aka Pefkin. Though active since the mid 90s, Brogan's work is entirely new to me (the shame is all my own), but i've clearly been missing a trick - Métayer and Brogan are perfect bedfellows, both plugging into the outer-reaches of folk-derived, drone-based composition with varying degrees of density and emotional heft. The violin sits at the heart of both their work, though they jump in different directions. Brogan's two compositions are more notably heavy and elemental, huge swaying structures that seem to speak of wild Scottish moors and weathered, darkened expanses. Where the wind whips and the night gets heavy. By contrast, Métayer's approach feels more cerebral and inward looking, exploring harsher, high register tones and shape-shifting structure. Drone is still central to her work, but there's also a free-ness to her approach that makes some nods towards the minimal texturally-focused work of the Lovely Music stable ala Alvin Lucifer, David Tudor or Yasunao Tone, which i suppose in turn leads us back to the Fluxus Anthology. No mean place to end up. A winning introduction for me to Brogan and a victory return for Métayer - hats off to Morc for pulling it together.