Pest Productions

• 1. Introduction

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  Pest Productions is a Chinese independent record label that opened in the summer of 2006 in Nanchang, Jiangxi, and would go on to become the most well-known home for black metal in China. It was started by two members of a Chinese depressive black metal band called Be Persecuted: Deng Zhang and a collaborator known as Wu. From a single city in southern China, they set out to build something the country had never quite had before. How does a label born out of financial crisis in a genre rarely associated with China become an internationally recognised name? And what does it say about the global spread of underground music that a scene this niche could find its most prominent home in Nanchang? Those are the questions worth sitting with as this story unfolds.

• 2. A Label on the Brink

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  Wu left Pest Productions shortly after the label released a demo record by his own band. That departure left Deng Zhang as the sole person responsible for keeping things running. Within the label's first year, the financial situation grew serious enough that shutting down was a genuine possibility, not a distant fear. Deng was candid about that precariousness. What kept the label alive was the loyalty of musicians he had befriended. Their support bridged the gap until the label could find its footing. Deng Zhang himself brought an unusual combination of skills to the work: alongside running the label, he also worked as a graphic designer and musician, and he operated two additional record labels beyond Pest Productions.

• 3. The Album That Changed Everything

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  Zuriaake, also written in Chinese as 葬屍湖, released a debut record through Pest Productions called Afterimage of Autumn. That album became what the source describes as a milestone in the Chinese black metal scene. Before that release, the label was surviving; after it, the label had a reason to be taken seriously. Pest Productions went on to sign bands from an unusually wide range of black metal subgenres, a range that a Decibel article described as spanning from primitive, raw-sounding black metal all the way to experimental, ambient, and atmospheric forms. The label also established two sub-divisions: Self-Destruction, started in 2008, and Autumn Flood, which launched the same year as the main label in 2006.

• 4. Ghost Bath and the Origin Controversy

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  The label's most discussed signing was the American band Ghost Bath. When Pest Productions took them on, the band's actual location was not publicly known. Bandcamp required a listed location, and so singer Dennis Mikula selected Chongqing, a major city in southwestern China. That choice created the impression that Ghost Bath was a Chinese act. Contradictions eventually surfaced, and the musicians were revealed to be from Minot, North Dakota. The source notes it is not known whether Deng was aware of the band's real origins at the time of signing. In 2014, Pest Productions released Ghost Bath's debut album, titled Funeral. Deng later stated that he had initially planned to drop the band after learning the truth, but changed his mind once he listened to their first album. A supporter of the label based in South America had also pushed for the band to be dropped.

• 5. An International Roster

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  Alongside Ghost Bath, Pest Productions signed bands from well beyond China's borders, including Heretoir and Thränenkind from Germany and Make a Change Kill Yourself from Denmark. The full roster stretches across dozens of countries: Ireland, Sweden, Spain, Chile, Iceland, France, Norway, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Finland, New Zealand, Canada, Indonesia, Iraq, Russia, and Turkey all appear among the label's artists. Compilations became one way to showcase that breadth, with three various-artists releases bearing titles drawn from poetic and literary imagery: "The World Comes to an End in the End of a Journey," "Depression and Hatred of 3 Years," and "Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer," a title borrowed from the name of a Caspar David Friedrich painting. Seeds of Iblis from Iraq and Pure Wrath from Indonesia represent just how far outside conventional music industry centres the label was willing to look.