By Hayley Gastmeier
Tonnie ten Hove dreamed up the lyrics to one of his songs while lying on his back, staring up to the sky at Rocky Lookout in the Tararuas.
Progressive metal band Pencarrow, who ten Hove formed in 2013, has recently released their debut album Dawn Simulation, and the group are already hard at work on their second.
Twenty-five-year-old ten Hove, a Rathkeale College music teacher and Wairarapa College old boy, is joined by three other members – all men and born and raised in Masterton.
Justin Chorley, the drummer, mixed and mastered the album, Anthony Rose plays the keyboard and Todd Thompson plays the bass.
Ten Hove, on vocals and guitar, said Dawn Simulation had been a labour of love and was the result of four years of hard work.
“It’s finally here and a lot of people are excited to hear it so we’re excited to release it to the world.”
In making the album the band did everything themselves including recording all songs in their home studios and creating the cover artworks.
With six tracks which play up to 17 minutes long, the album is designed to take the listener on a journey.
“You might have a theme at the start which is kind of suggested and then that sort of emerges later on in its full form,” ten Hove said.
“If you don’t listen to the entire song or the entire album you don’t quit get the sense of where the music’s come from…. If you heard a section by itself you’d think ‘oh that’s quit cool’, but if you’ve heard how its arrived at that point, well then it’s like a reward.”
Ten Hove said each song contained many concepts and melodies.
“We’ll have things like quite heavy seven string guitar riffs… but then the last track starts with just two minutes of pure orchestral, almost symphonic sounds. Then there’s choirs, there’s clean acoustic guitars, quite illustrious electric guitar and keyboard solos. So there’s a whole dynamic range and everything is thrown at you at quite a rate of knots.”
The album’s title was drawn from a piece of equipment, a damn simulator, which lights a room gradually just as the sun would light the earth.
“It’s like the idea of coming from a dark space to a light space. And that’s a metaphor for a multitude of different concepts, like coming from a lack of awareness to a greater awareness.”
Ten Hove said the band, aged 21-25, were disappointed King Street Live wasn’t still open for their album release party.
But they hope to celebrate it with a concert elsewhere next month, and they have a finished music video set to be launched to gain them some international exposure.
