Focus On: PÅGÅ

PÅGÅ, 2023. Image courtesy of PÅGÅ

“Out of a great lust to encounter the unknown and to explore the boundless in us this record/work came about, in the hands of The High Spirit Rebel. We wish this may serve as great entertainment, a bad enemy, an instrument and a match.
Enter! Step in!”

With these words in 2020, PÅGÅ, duo consisting of Pelle & Gottfrid Åhman, introduced their debut album "The Evil Year" (Svart Records, November 2020) to the outside world.

As we later became aware though, the seeds of this album had been planted quite a few years before: "In late 2016 me and Pelle spent a night playing each other all kinds of songs and sketches we individually had been working on during the year. In this soup of sounds there were a few pieces that seemed to carry some kind of thread or a mood maybe and it was something about the juxta-positioning of the pieces, with their different production qualities, that we found really intriguing. We could also see a story or at least a musical narrative playing out, and that night we more or less had a track order done. Then it took us about four years to get the sounds right. Many factors were at play in why it needed all this time. One of the biggest being living quite a distance from each other for a couple of years which made things a little trickier. We worked until it was done and it happened to take four years this time", explained Gottfrid in our interview back in March 2021.

Regardless of the time it took to actually being released, when it came out it certainly impressed many of us listeners, with its strange, enigmatic and haunting soundscapes, moving from psychedelic blues to moments of instrumental, dark ambient. Pelle and Gottfrid made it immediately clear when the album was released, that it has never been intended to be played live.

→ Delve deeper into "The Evil Year":
  Music - Artworks - Official Videos - Lyrics - Get a physical copy: EU - U.S.

PÅGÅ - "Magnetic Agent" tape (Self-released, 2023)

After this outstanding debut, PÅGÅ returned silent (at least to the public) for a while, until in March 2021 they were invited to the radio show Houds of Pamir on HKCR. On that occasion, they recorded a 4-track live session which they dedicated to their departed friend Selim Lemouchi: "Magnetic Agent" - "An Unfinished World" - "In the Eyes of the Sepiolanaes" - "Beat to Descend". Their long time friend and In Solitude bandmate Uno Bruniusson guests on drums on the last track. These four songs have then been self-released by PÅGÅ in 2023 on the cassette "Magnetic Agent".

G:.Å:. · PÅGÅ - Magnetic Agent/An Unfinished World/In the Eyes of the Sepiolanaes/Beat to Descend

→ More images of "Magnetic Agent" can be seen in this dedicated section.

PÅGÅ performing their first live show at Lyhytaaltoasema in Pori (FIN) September 15th, 2023 Photo by Rasmus Forssell / Kohereeri

In September 2023, PÅGÅ performed live for the first time, playing two shows in Finland: as they had previously stated, they never intended to play the music from their debut album live, and indeed their live shows are their own way to experiment further and beyond in other musical realms, through the use of samples and tape loops with the addition of vocal parts chanted by Pelle.

In November 2023, PÅGÅ took part in WATAIN's 25th anniversary celebrations, performing at both their shows in Uppsala (Attila Csihar's Void Ov Voices being the other guest at the anniversary shows, making a perfect combination of eerie and immersive atomospheres right before the WATAIN storm).

→ Excerpts and images from PÅGÅ 's appearance at WATAIN 25th anniversary

In December 2023, PÅGÅ played in Berlin, alongside Uno Bruniusson's solo project Perkwuno, and Berlin's electronic experimentalists Phallucipher: some exctracts from this show can be seen in this dedicated post.

PÅGÅ live at UKK in Uppsala, November 3rd, 2023 - by extreMMetal.se

Since footage of PÅGÅ ' s live shows has begun to emerge here and there recently, it has become clear that Pelle and Gottfrid have never stopped venturing along the (burning) path which they undertook when they were young kids and began playing music, rejecting any kind of stagnation, constantly approaching music with utmost reverence and profound dedication, not only as a form of expression but even more so as a process of self-exploration and progression.

To this, someone might strongly relate, and those who do, are probably still listening, just like we are, appreciating, and being inspired by, what they have been creating all the way back with In Solitude, No Future, Invidious, and now with PÅGÅ.

Our music wanderers will perform live again soon: three shows are already scheduled in March 2024, and of course we hope that more will be announced! All the dates confirmed so far can be found in detail in the Partake section of this website.

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