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: Pia Isaksen of Superlynx & Pia Isa

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

I create and play music with my band Superlynx and solo project PIA ISA. I am trying create and do things I love and that I find meaningful. I discovered that music was my thing when I was a kid and started playing piano when I was eight. A year later I started inventing little melodies and songs myself and it felt like a very exciting and almost magic thing. I started playing guitar when I was 13 and listened to a lot of music. The town I grew up in, called Moss, had a great music scene at the time and so many bands, so there were people to play with and places to practice. I moved to Oslo in my early twenties and played in a couple of bands there which later led on to forming Superlynx in 2013. Then I started my solo project last year after having thought about it for years and finally found time for it.

Describe your first musical memory.

The first memory that comes to mind is sitting on the floor in the living room as a maybe three or four year old with my mom, singing songs together from a children’s songbook. I was very excited about singing and learning songs. I also remember the first time I felt moved by music and tears suddenly came rolling just because it was so beautiful. I think I was around eight and a Grieg record was playing in the house.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

This is a tough question and it seems impossible to choose one. There are so many special moments to look back on, from gigs I have played – especially with Superlynx – to being in the audience at amazing gigs, to moments of connecting musically with other people and memorable creative times. One gig that comes to mind was in Berlin in July 2019 when Superlynx supported Weedeater in a packed venue in 40 ° C and everyone up front was dancing during our set. The heat was a challenge but there was such a special lovely energy in the room and we had so much fun that hot summer night with new and old friends. Playing live the very night Oslo opened again after covid lockdown last year was also something to remember. And finally making my solo album and then having someone whose music I have been a fan of for a long time, Gary Arce from Yawning Man, etc., play on it also stands out. Seeing Sleep in Oslo in 2012 with a group of friends was also very special. One of them, a very good friend of mine, passed away shortly after and I am grateful we got to make this last great memory. Sorry, this question brings up many things. I will stop here.

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

I always assume that people are kind and honest. That has led to disappointment more than once and I think I have become a little less naive as I have gotten older.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

To different things for different people. I guess also to more insight and to a broader “toolbox” for your ideas and what you want to express.

How do you define success?

Doing what you love, what is important to you and what makes you happy. When it comes to music I think it is something like creative fulfillment and when the music, words, performance, mood and sound just feel right all together. The feeling of having created a work you can fully stand behind and feel happy with. And if someone else connects to it and gets some meaning, comfort, good times, a needed escape or maybe even help dealing with things through it that is a wonderful thing. Like so much music has done for me. It wouldn’t hurt to sell a lot of records and tour the world but being able to do what you love and having good people around is pretty successful I would say.

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

On a selfish level a lot of things. Violence, sexism, racism, sickness, injustice, the climate crisis etc. It would have been easier to not have seen or experienced any of it. But in the bigger picture I don’t think it is a very good solution to look away from the truth and pretend these problems don’t exist.

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

More music of course, and I would also like to do some more collaborations. It would also be exciting to do some music for moving images or a film some time. And I wish to do more graphic art of my own that I have many ideas for and that I hope will be possible to realize sometime in the future.

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

Connection, catharsis, escape, deeper understanding of life, transcendence, hope. To express and communicate thoughts, ideas and feelings from our very inner core in a way that nothing else can, on more and on deeper levels. To help understand ourselves, each other and the world better and it definitely connects us and makes life more interesting.

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

I am looking so much forward to summer which is finally beginning to kick in here, and to daily swims in the ocean when the sea gets warm enough. It is getting there. To me this is one of the very best things in life.

www.facebook.com/piaisamusic
www.instagram.com/piaisamusic
www.piaisa.bandcamp.com

www.argonautarecords.com
www.facebook.com/argonautarecords

https://www.facebook.com/superlynxovdoom
https://www.instagram.com/superlynxdoom/
https://superlynx.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/darkessencerecords
https://www.darkessencerecords.no/
https://karismarecords.bandcamp.com/

Pia Isa, Distorted Chants (2022)

Superlynx, Electric Temple (2021)

Oslo, Norway’s Superlynx will issue their third album, Electric Temple, through Dark Essence Records on April 16. The title-track is the first single and is premiering in the video below ahead of a Feb. 4 standalone release. It arrives early on the record, with just opener/longest track (immediate points) “Rising Flame” in front of it, and reinforces the commitment to atmosphere and mood that song puts forth, as well as the accompanying threat of push, the morose, airy vocals of bassist Pia Isaksen and the Earth-style guitar lumber of Daniel Bakken largely holding firm as Ole Teigen‘s drumming take off into a second half freakout. Compared to that, “Electric Temple” comes across as more straightforward — do I need to say “ritualistic?” — with repetitions of its title line and a linear build of tension that plays out in post-psych fashion, the payoff that arrives swirling but still primarily dark in tone.

“Apocalypse,” shorter at just 2:37, quickly proves this brooding nod isn’t all Superlynx have to offer this time around, switching between tempos from its beginning drone and melodic ambience to a march into blastbeats before a proggy mesh of drums and guitar raises the stakes further only to recede and bookend with the initial quiet verse. Blink and you’ll miss it, but “Apocalypse” is one of several shorter pieces peppered throughout — along with the instrumental “Sonic Sacrament” that one assumes closes side A, and the penultimate “Siren Sing,” which brings Teigen to the fore on vocals — and it and its compatriots do much to enrich Electric Temple‘s overall impression. Sandwiched between “Apocalypse” and “Sonic Sacrament,” “Moonbather” feels like a culmination for the first half of the album, with Isaksen and Teigen singing together almost like a cultish chant by its end.

The second half of the 10-track/43-minute outing starts with “Returning Light,” which in the span of four minutes shifts from relative minimalism to an engrossing progression that shifts smoothly into the guitar and bass intro to “Laws of Nature,” the underlying rumble gradually coming forward as the drums hold back, a tension Superlynx have toyed with before, but one that continues to work in their favor. A particularly soulful guitar solo brings “Laws of Nature” to its apex, and struck piano notes in “Then You Move” show that the context for the record has not yet finished expanding. Teigen takes lead vocals with Isaksen holding off until the second half, and the between the keys and his delivery, and subsequently hers, there’s a particularly goth vibe to “Then You Move,” the late solo and understated, long-fade finish making “Siren Sing” a complement to the song before it.

I’m not sure if it’s strings or chamber-feedback or keys or what’s droning out behind Teigen in “Siren Sing,” but the room it adds to the atmosphere works well, and the silence that moves into the renewed march of closer “May” — almost bluesy as it is — feels like it’s being given its due for it. A spoken verse from Teigen sets up an arrival from Isaksen as the track unfurls a patient forward progression, rising to a head and receding softer to finish, it’s a reminder of how much of what makes Electric Temple work, from the initial, ambience-setting rollout of “Rising Flame” and “Electric Temple” onward, is about the mood, patience and the combination of space and depth in the procession of songs. Make no mistake, there’s plenty of heft to go around, as you’ll hear in the video premiere below, but Electric Temple is as much about the creation of the reaches in which that happens as it is about the happening itself.

Enjoy the video:

Superlynx, “Electric Temple” official video

Video by Joan Pope / Temple ov Saturn.

Band footage and photo by Carl Eek Torgersen.

From the upcoming album Electric Temple.

Preorder: https://superlynx.bandcamp.com/album/electric-temple

Superlynx is:
Pia Isaksen – Bass/Vocals
Daniel Bakken – Guitar
Ole Teigen – Drums/Vocals

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Dark Essence Records on Facebook

Dark Essence Records on Bandcamp

Dark Essence Records website