“Forests” by Pesk

“Forests” is the opening track from an 8-song mini-album called “Ground” by Port Chalmers-based dark and doomy shoegaze duo Pesk.

There’s an atmosphere of dark magic throughout the whole album, and this opening track is a sublime starting point for your journey into Pesk’s world.

The trademark Pesk fuzzed out reverb sludge-guitar fills this dark forest like a dense fog, while those crunching syn-drums are like a giant’s foot-steps. The shimmering keyboards, Nico-esque vocal and then that unexpectedly exultant chorus melody provide the transcendent touches to a spellbinding song.

The rest of the album continues with a similar strong and uncompromising tone.  They refer to their sound as combination of shoegaze, industrial and cold wave but there’s also a fair chunk of stentorian doom-laden metal about the rumbling density of their sound.

“When The Heavies Come” by Pesk

Day 7 of the 31 Days of May New Zealand Music Month madness takes us to a dark echoing railway tunnel beneath Port Chalmers where Pesk are waiting for “When The Heavies Come”

I have no idea if Pesk recorded this in a railway tunnel under Port Chalmers at all. This is called ‘creative licence’. Or, ‘fakes news’ as it’s called now. In simpler times it was just called ‘making things up’.  Anyway, it’s a long way of saying this recording sounds huge and cavernous and also a bit ominous, like the rumble of an oncoming freight train. There’s a sludgy lumbering pulse to the riff which brings to mind some of those earliest Black Sabbath tunes like “Sweet Leaf” too which were all lower-mid frequencies and in no hurry at all.

This lovely fuzzy reverb drenched rumble is the work of the two humans making up Pesk. When they play live drummer Raff plays the synth with one hand and and electronic drumkit with the other three limbs. Guitarist and vocalist Amee provides the low frequency viscous guitar and the solemn vocal. It fills a room. It could so easily fill a railway tunnel too.