The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Clément Márquez of Red Sun Atacama

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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

You mean with the Atacama band? We play a mixture of heavy desert rock, with regular slides into psychedelic jams and an always on punkish abrasive spirit. The first album Licancabur was still rooted in desert rock but the upcoming album will push even further the crossover of styles!

We came to do this kind of urban/desert rock crossover very naturally. Since late teenage years we‘ve been listening to Stoner and Heavy Psych -music much more associated with beaches/space/desert- while growing up and living in big cold grey city!

Describe your first musical memory.

My very first musical memory must be witnessing my uncles on stage when I was five or six! They were an important act of Chilean folk music (Illapu) back in the days and without a doubt must the very first band I’ve ever seen live. Memories are blurry of course, but I remember the electricity in the air, the lights…and the smoke machine! (lol)

However, back then I cannot say I cared that much about the music per say, or at least as much as any form of entertainment.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Tough one! As an audience, it’s a close game between the Stooges in 2007 and Motorpsycho in 2014. The Stooges gig was just MADNESS. Fury on and off the stage, sound insanely loud… as a sweet nineteen youngster, there was a real feeling of both danger from being in the frantic crowd and ecstasy from the sonic magma and energy pouring from the stage.

The Motorpsycho gig was kind of a “blind date” for me. I went there without knowing much of the band and on the recommendation from my friend Seb “Flyin Caillou” (from More Fuzz blog/label). I was blown away. Everything was so powerful yet beautiful, perfectly fluid while complex. They are really unique and hard to put a label on. One of the very few gigs that moved me to a tear, and I’ve been to a few!

As a band, again a tough one. We played various places and audience size, but strangely enough my best gig memory must be in Ghent’s Kinkystar, a smallish rock venue.

The event was organized by the NoNameCollective crew (they are rad!), and was iconic of what a good bar gig should be : place fully packed with bodies up to the entrance door, beer flying across the room, friendly mosh pits and risky crowd surfing, with music rattling windows and glasses on the bar. Electric.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

I cannot say to be fair. I really consider music as something personal, and to a greater extent in the rock/metal music niches we are in. You have to be open to other people tastes and opinions, but at the same time should not feel compelled to satisfy and follow the pack neither.

There is some bands I really don’t dig but I would never presume they are “bad” and vis versa.

But again, and I don’t want to sound corny, I find that the Doom/Stoner/Heavy/Psych niche to be way less judgmental than some other Metal/Rock scenes!

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

I think when you start out, you have a lot of influences to digest and you often tend to mimic some music/style/bands you already dig. Then, gigs after gigs, rehearsals after rehearsals, if you found the right match of band mates…you end up with something that’s more “you”.

That’s a progression that you can witness with most bands, usually the first album is kind of the “proto” version of the band, then the second and/or third album is really when the band defines itself!

Artistic progression is not be judge on how famous the project gets but how much it you feel like it’s “you”.

How do you define success?

Oof. Tough one again. The simplest common way to answer would be “to be able to do only what you like without having to worry about the money” but that a bit reductive and a lot of successful bands in the scene must work “regular jobs” when touring and recording is off.

The way I see it, and maybe this is “thinking small”, success would be when the whole band feel like they have reached what they aimed for at first, they are proud of what they accomplished, and that anything that comes after is bonus.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Maybe I’m lucky, but in the context of the music scene, both as an audience and a band, I can’t recall something I wish I hadn’t seen. We had a couple of crappy sleeping places after some shady gigs, but that’s just bad experiences which make for great spicy memories to share later! (lol)

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I have this idea for some years now, to start a band mixing post-hardcore, sludge-doom and kraut elements. The whole thing with guitars, drummer(s?), bass, synth and at least 3 singing members. I have ZERO time to start such a project but that’s stuck in my head!

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

I have the sensation that art and even more music is the last transcendental domain we have left.

(sorry, so much gravitas, I know! lol)

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Same thing as most of the world : get back to a much “normal” life!

On a more personal note, also the release of our second album with Atacama. We just started to look for labels but we are really excited about this one!

https://www.facebook.com/ElsolrojodeAtacama
https://elsolrojodeatacama.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/redsunatacama/
https://www.facebook.com/morefuzzrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/morefuzzz/
https://morefuzzrecords.bandcamp.com/

Red Sun Atacama, Licancabur (2018)

[Click play above to stream Red Sun Atacama’s Licancabur in full. Album is out June 29 on More Fuzz Records with vinyl to follow this summer.]

Usually when a band puts a place-name at the end of their moniker, it’s because they’re from there and there’s probably another band with the same name who perhaps had it first. Before you go thinking otherwise, Red Sun Atacama are not from the Atacama Desert in Chile, which is noted as being the driest place on earth. They reside a continent away in Paris, France, which last I heard still gets plenty of rain. Comprised of the trio of bassist/vocalist Clément Màrquez, guitarist Vincent Hospital and drummer Robin Caillon, the French fuzzers make their debut with Licancabur, a six-track/35-minute long-player issued through More Fuzz Records that takes its title from the volcano located in said desert traditionally worshiped as sacred by the Atacameños people who live nearby. The album’s structure is somewhat quizzical, with a quick intro leading to a bookend of two larger songs with two shorter tracks between and one even-shorter track between that. Just for an easy visual, here’s the tracklist:

1. Intro (0:36)
2. Gold (10:38)
3. Red Queen (5:51)
4. Cupid Arrows (1:46)
5. Drawers (4:20)
6. Empire (11:57)

See what I mean? If you put aside the intro, you get five tracks that even sort of look like a mountain peak when written out. I can’t help but wonder if, since they named the record after a volcano, if that wasn’t on Red Sun Atacama‘s mind as they put the hard-driving, desert-rocking release together. Even if you keep the “Intro” — which taps into Morricone-style Western acoustic strum and folkish flutes before the leadoff riff of “Gold” quickly enters to begin the album in earnest — or consider that the vinyl breaks into two three-song sides, the basic idea holds up of climbing a peak to the punk-sprint of “Cupid Arrows” and then making one’s way down through “Drawers” and out into the long plain of “Empire,” which closes side B. May or may not have been intentional, but sure doesn’t feel like an accident.

Crucially, to coincide with this structural nuance, Licancabur has a front-to-back flow which, from that opening riff to “Gold” onward, finds the three-piece careening through high-energy desert riffing, making standout elements from bass and lead guitar interplay as they move toward the midsection of that opening track after the initial verses/chorus thrust and just before they pull back and drop out at around 4:30 to more laid back unfolding. “Gold” has a long instrumental break, keys included, but ultimately returns to vocals later, and even in this and in “Empire,” which is more insistently drummed to close out the offering but still has its own section reserved for a lengthy jam, there’s a consuming fluidity that carries the listener along with it. Red Sun Atacama border on hypnotic, but never seem on their debut to relinquish control into all-out drift, and so when they snap back to the forward push that plays such a significant role in their sound, they don’t necessarily have as far to go as they otherwise might. They keep that flow steady across the entire record.

A lack of pretense and/or self-indulgence always helps when it comes to desert rock sincerely working, as Licancabur does, to speak to the origins of the genre, which are punk at their heart. It certainly does Red Sun Atacama sonic favors, but part of that too might just stem from the fact that they don’t seem keen (yet) on wandering too far. Could be they’re worried about getting lost in the dry sands, but in “Gold” and “Empire” as well as in “Red Queen” and “Drawers,” they keep their momentum straight ahead of them and throttle back on tempo here and there, break to guitar, drums, whatnot, but by and large run fast and high-energy through the songs. Hooks provide landmarks in “Red Queen,” which might be the most purely Kyuss-ian riff included, and “Drawers” has an even more manic feel, holding together a tense vibe even as the guitar wahs out a lead in the middle and they make their way back to the slams and swings of the last verse, taking turns on bass, guitar and drums by measure to mark the transition into the outro. It’s a head-spinner, overriding control is maintained.

That control turns out to be one of the most impressive aspects of Licancabur, and nowhere more so than on the side B opener/mountain peak “Cupid Arrows,” which is the shortest inclusion at the 1:46 noted above, but still has an essential role to play in being the most furious moment of desert groove on the album. Much to their credit, Red Sun Atacama are off and running speedily and reference The Stooges on their way even as they seem to nod to a more echoing incarnation of earliest Dozer in the sort-of centerpiece, which is the apex of their momentum, thickly toned enough to be consistent with its surroundings and yet an immediate standout for its all-go-no-stop acceleration. If there is anywhere on Licancabur that Red Sun Atacama are in danger of losing their grip on their craft, it’s in “Cupid Arrows,” and they absolutely don’t. They execute the track at full speed like it ain’t a thing and then are dug into “Drawers” before the listener even has a chance to process what they just heard. Right on.

It’s a particularly encouraging facet of Red Sun Atacama‘s first offering — apart from the 2015 demo Part.I on which “Gold” (then “The Gold”), “Red Queen” and “Cupid’s Arrows” appeared — that they’re able to hold it all together with such apparent ease and smoothness, and where they’ve left themselves room to grow is in terms of patience and in the jammy moments like those in “Gold” and “Empire.” One can’t help but wonder if Red Sun Atacama‘s next offering might find them digging even further into these psychedelic landscapes, their fingers bare in exploratory dirt, but for now, while they might want to add an “of” to their moniker, they nonetheless provide a welcome, cohesive kick in the ass through classic-style desert rock and roll and leave one anticipating what they might do next. One could ask nothing more of their first album.

Red Sun Atacama on Thee Facebooks

Red Sun Atacama on Bandcamp

Vinyl preorder at More Fuzz Records

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