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: Roelof Van Tonder of Acid Magus

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

Simply put, I’m an aspiring musician, heavy emphasis on aspiring. I’ve always been in love and obsessed with music and I’ve dabbled here and there but never committed fully. I fucked around a lot in my early years, had way too much fun (if you know what I mean) and I also thought being like the musicians I admired wasn’t attainable for me. During lockdown I lost my job, and some other stuff happened that threw me into a deep depression. Music is what got me out of bed, practicing for hours every day gave me a sense of purpose and achievement that got me through a really tough time. My friend Keenan started a new project, and was in need of a drummer. I said fuck it and threw in my lot although I could barely play a single song. I realized how happy playing music made me and I should take this chance. I don’t think Keenan imagined anything to come from it at that point, but I was hell bent on proving myself. Many hours of practice, often without a working drum kit I managed to get to a point where my playing was passable. Since then I’ve moved to bass, it was another instrument I had which I could play when I didn’t have a drum kit, and I ‘ve just focused on getting this project to be successful. What I do is very much what is required at the moment, be it play a different instrument, do social media, organize shows or fill in a questionnaire. My journey is my own and I find that pretty cool now.

Describe your first musical memory.

Well… there’s many but one that I’ll never forget is listening to my dad’s Chris de Burgh CD, Spanish Train. The title track if you don’t know is a story of God and the Devil playing a game of cards for the souls of dead, on a train to the afterlife. The combination of storytelling, philosophy and music was just the coolest. I listened to that song many times, sometimes singing along other times thinking about life. I was a very broody child if you can tell!

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Frist show I played with Acid Magus on drums. We all played well, and it was just simply exhilarating! Felt like I was leading a charge into battle, hacked my way through some songs and it was over. Pure bliss!

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

The depression I went through during lockdown had me reevaluating life, it really confronted me with a lot of my beliefs of what a worthy life is and what a successful future looks like.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Art and expression usually are synonymous, and I agree but really dedicating yourself to an instrument, craft or art requires a shit ton of discipline in many aspects of your life not only the time spent practicing. To be able to express yourself effectively, honestly and with confidence you need to get a lot of things right outside of your craft, and you need to find balance and purpose in your daily life. So I think artistic progression stems from the full spectrum of life, knowledge, relationships, philosophy, experiences, and honest hard work. Seeking your inner voice and expressing it is good and all, but I think we overemphasize creativity and art. Life imitates art as they say so stop trying so hard and just live. I say this like I do it with ease, but it’s hard trust me!

How do you define success?

Being able to pivot and do what you desire without having to worry about what you’re leaving behind. And simply, being worthy of happiness, emphasizing appreciation. If you can do that every day, you’re a success.

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

It’s morbid but I saw my cat Charlie get run over by a car right in front my eyes. She was emotional crutch during lockdown, and got me through a really tough time.

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

I study history, and I think anyone who has read about South Africa’s early frontier history would agree it’s just waiting to be told in a spaghetti western style movie. My sisters are in the film industry, check out Acid Magus’ music videos for some of their work, and I’ve always wanted to write a historically accurate, narrative script set in South Africa’s frontier and make a movie with them.

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

Catharsis and documentation or immortalizing memories. Not always to the degree of processing something heavy like trauma, or something official like painting a president’s portrait. It can be something simple like doodling when bored or taking a picture of a friend. We live life and find moments that need processing and art naturally lends itself to this, just as it documents these moments that are important to us. I often think of cave drawings in this sense. People painted what they held dear or had value, but also express tumultuous times or experiences that people should remember and learn from.

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

Getting old, I’m curious where life will take me and where the world will go.

https://www.facebook.com/acidmagus
https://www.instagram.com/acidmagus/
https://acidmagus.bandcamp.com/

http://mongrelrecords.com
http://www.facebook.com/mongrelrecords
http://www.instagram.com/mongrel_records
https://mongrelrecords1.bandcamp.com/

Acid Magus, Hope is Heavy (2023)

Pretoria, South Africa’s Acid Magus released their second album, Hope is Heavy, through Mongrel Records in July as the follow-up to their 2021 debut Wyrd Syster (review here). The rolling, loosely hip-hop-informed “Dead Weight” is the third single from the six-track/43-minute long-player, preceded by “Caligulater” (posted here) and “Demon Behemoth” (posted here). Diverging from the band’s general methodology as it appears here, the penultimate cut features a guest appearance from Johni Holiday — whose band Ruff Majik released their excellent Elektrik Ram (review here) album earlier this year; you may have heard me drone on about how perfect it is — and wraps itself around the hook that begins with the line, “Twelve gauges to waste you,” and elephantine-fuzz marches through with due nod until the dreamy midsection, from whence it moves into a slower solo before rallying for a final chorus. Catchy, bouncing in its lumber-prone way, with Acid Magus vocalist Anrico Jeske reminding of Sasquatch during the verse with Holiday joining in effectively for the chorus and introducing the song.

Jeske is new to the band as of Hope is Heavy, as is guitarist/vocalist Brendon “Cowboy Bez” Bezuidenhout (also of Ruff Majik), who take the places respectively of former vocalist Christiaan Van Renen and nobody. Returning players Keenan Kinnear (guitar, songwriting), Jarryd Wood (bass) and Roelof van Tonder (drums on the album, now bass) are fairly consistent in tone and purpose from where Acid Magus was on Wyrd Syster, putting marked heft and fuzz behind heavy psychedelic liquidity with melody over top and an exploratory foundation. But there’s no question Acid Magus are a different band on Hope is Heavy, the title evoking a sense of ‘daring to hope,’ positing perhaps that it’s easier to be hopeless, whereas in order to have any kind of optimism for the future is harder work. I have little doubt this is true, and if you like heavy music named after heavy things, 10-minute LP closer “Trillion Tonne Sun” should satisfy nicely, but the change in the group is almost immediate as opener and previously mentioned single “Demon Behemoth” winds in on feedback and crashes to announce the arrival of its central riff and moves into its first verse.

Placed at the presumed end of side A, “Caligulater” gets a little rougher edged in its middle, but the melodic serenity of “Demon Behemoth” and the subsequent “Progeneration” — light touches of guitar there floating over the bassline and a chorus emerging that’s all the more a triumph because it stays slow — is maintained and a fluidity results as “Caligulater” picks up the tempo in seeming response to the song before it, keeping the airiness of guitar but setting it to swing along with the drums. Side B’s “A Planet, a Deathstar” is the shortest inclusion at 4:33, and it uses that time to begin a classic second-half-of-the-record expansion of style, with a spoken vocal over the early, resonant à la All Them Witches, acoustic-inclusive, low-key galloping verse, and a groove that holds as the fuller-toned fuzz unveiled and the grittier voice returns, suitable to the pulses that punctuate the riff, fading out to let Holiday mark the arrival of “Dead Weight.” And there is no level on which Hope is Heavy‘s penultimate track isn’t play. It’s cheeky, its groove is downright arrogant and the Jeske/Holiday tradeoffs make it a party, even if the video is set in an office with a surprising amount of longhairs in lower management.

It’s a blowout, if a somewhat different kind than “Caligulater,” but ends up in a not entirely dissimilar place following its two-minute intro, shimmering with heavy prog tonality and filled out beneath by denser low-end fuzz, opening for the verse like older-school European heavy rock and touching on ’90s-style alternative, but Acid Magus are clearly aware they’re at the end, and after reaffirming the semi-psych liquidity of side A, they use the final chorus of “Trillon Tonne Sun” for a crescendo with an epilogue of quiet guitar bookending the start of the song. The last purposeful move on the album but by no means the first, Hope is Heavy would feel like a second debut if the band hadn’t put so much detail and depth into the recording. Setting a broad context for themselves, they introduce listeners to their new lineup with intentional creative reach and a sound and style more cohesive than it was two years ago, despite the personnel shifts. And in some ways subtle and some ways not, they put a focus on songwriting that, whether it’s “Dead Weight” or “Progeneration” or “Demon Behemoth,” produces memorable results.

They were a band with potential, and so they remain. They don’t at all sound like they’re done growing, but Hope is Heavy does benefit from lessons gleaned from Wyrd Syster, and in thinking about where they might go for a third long-player, one hopes nothing so much as that Acid Magus continue to develop on the path they’ve set for themselves. That would be the best-case scenario, and they seem to know it, having come into a make-or-break moment for the band with a collection of songs ready to answer the question in decisive fashion: make.

“Dead Weight” video premieres below. Hope is Heavy is out now. More info follows from the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

Acid Magus, “Dead Weight (Feat. Johni Holiday)” video premiere

Buy / Stream Hope Is Heavy:
https://orcd.co/hope-is-heavy
https://acidmagus.bandcamp.com/album/hope-is-heavy

Get ready to be entranced by the dark, thought-provoking soundscape as South Africa’s own progressive doom virtuosos Acid Magus unleash their latest masterpiece — a riveting music video for their track Dead Weight from their critically acclaimed new album Hope Is Heavy out now on Mongrel Records. This release delves into the heart of modern popular culture’s relentless imitation game, challenging conventions and inviting viewers to question the status quo. To amplify the impact, the track features a captivating guest vocals appearance from none other than the esteemed frontman Johni Holiday from prominent South African stoner rock sensations Ruff Majik.

Johni takes on a dual role, gracing the track with his unmistakable voice while also embodying the main antagonist in the music video. In a stunning visual portrayal, he assumes the role of a vampire, reigning as a corporate overlord in a dystopian, cutthroat business environment.

Featuring 6 tracks, the album explores themes of existentialism, introspection, and the human condition. The band’s poetic lyrics delve into profound and introspective territories, inviting listeners to explore the depths of their own psyche.

“As time passed and I grew older, I found myself becoming depressed for no reason other than for the fact that I was becoming a bitter cynic. ‘Hope is Heavy’ is me trying to find that elusive light at the end of the ever present, gloomy tunnel.” – Keenan Kinnear, guitarist/songwriter.

Track Listing:
1. Demon Behemoth
2. Progeneration
3. Caligulater
4. A Planet, A Deathstar
5. Dead Weight (ft. Johni Holiday)
6. Trillion Tonne Sun

Line Up:
Keenan Kinnear: guitar
Jarryd Wood: bass guitar
Roelof van Tonder: drums
Anrico Jeske: vocals
Brendon Bezuidenhout: guitar, vocals

Acid Magus, Hope is Heavy (2023)

Acid Magus, “Caligulater”

Acid Magus, “Demon Behemoth”

Acid Magus on Facebook

Acid Magus on Instagram

Acid Magus on Bandcamp

Mongrel Records website

Mongrel Records on Facebook

Mongrel Records on Instagram

Mongrel Records on Bandcamp

Time for a second single as reconfigured South African heavy psychedelic rockers Acid Magus lava-flow their way closer to issuing their sophomore full-length, Hope is Heavy, through Mongrel Records. We get a month on that release — July — as the now-five-piece answer last month’s reveal of “Demon Behemoth” (posted here; also ‘dehemonth?’) with “Caligulater,” the lyrics of which posit your boss, landlord, etc. as one of the more reputedly cruel of Rome’s emperors. If you’ve ever had a job in an office and watched some wanker lord over it like a middle-management fiefdom, or, you know, paid to purchase absolutely anything at any point in the last three years and spent more money to get less of whatever you’re buying, surely it’s a relatable perspective.

Adding a second guitar and bringing in a new frontman aren’t minor changes for the band to undertake, particularly in light of how well their sound worked on 2021’s Wyrd Syster (review here), their debut album. “Caligulater” and “Demon Behemoth” drop hints of some shifts in approach, with a heavier foundation beneath bright-toned, semi-airy post-psych leads and more forward and purposeful vocal melodies. There’s a definite aspect of solidification here that makes me curious how the record will pan out around these tracks, but nothing Acid Magus have yet unveiled has been discouraging, which is about the absolute least you can say about the songwriting that’s coming to the forefront.

Don’t let me keep you. Both tracks are at the bottom of the post. You know what to do. PR wire had this to say:

Acid Magus unleash massive new single Caligulater from forthcoming album Hope Is Heavy

Pretoria based South African experimental rock band Acid Magus have been making waves in the music scene since their well received 2021 debut release Wyrd Syster. Now a 5-piece, 2023 sees the band returning stronger than ever with a new vocalist and addition of a second guitarist plus a forthcoming album Hope Is Heavy, set for release in July 2023 via Mongrel Records. New single Caligulater comes off the back of the albums immersive debut single Demon Behemoth which released in February this year.

Continuing the cynical theme established with Demon Behemoth, Caligulater derives its name from the infamous emperor Gaius, otherwise known as Caligula. He was the megalomaniacal third emperor of Rome, a man steeped in violent and sadistic excess. In short, not a cool guy. Guitarist and songwriter Keenan Kinnear delves into the message behind the song, “Caligulater explores my feelings concerning myself and my place in society. My own existential crisis and self-imposed vitriolic outlook on the world when at my worst. The “they” in the main hook, “they made us, betrayed us and enslaved us” can be applied to any subject. It could be Caligula himself concerning the citizens of Rome circa 37 AD or your parents, boss, society as a whole etc. It can even apply to yourself in the end.”

Buy / Stream Caligulater: https://orcd.co/caligulater

https://www.facebook.com/acidmagus
https://www.instagram.com/acidmagus/
https://acidmagus.bandcamp.com/

http://mongrelrecords.com
http://www.facebook.com/mongrelrecords
http://www.instagram.com/mongrel_records
https://mongrelrecords1.bandcamp.com/

Acid Magus, “Caligulater”

Acid Magus, “Demon Behemoth”

Don’t sleep on this. Don’t do it. I know, it’s another band, announcing another release, they’ve already made their debut in 2021’s Wyrd Syster (review here) so maybe you feel like you’re late to the party, but trust me, you’re not. Go ahead and click play on “Demon Behemoth” at the bottom of this post and you’ll find welcome amid the warm heavy psych tones and melodies as Acid Magus give a first taste of their upcoming sophomore LP, Hope is Heavy.

The song gets into some proggy chug and exploration later on — there’s time for these things in an eight-minute single — but the message even in its outer reaches is to immerse, to lose yourself in the going, and it’s worth doing so. Some restructuring of the band’s lineup has led to their becoming a five-piece, and while I dug that first record, what I’m hearing in “Demon Behemoth” is an uptick in fullness as well as production value and if that’s hope getting heavy as the track passes its sixth minute mark and finds its way back to its harmony-topped roll, the real adventure is just beginning. Sign me up.

No concrete release date as yet for Hope is Heavy, but Mongrel Records will have the release and the label sent the following down the PR wire:

Acid Magus unveil cathartic new single Demon Behemoth

DOWNLOAD / STREAM ► https://orcd.co/demonbehemoth

Acid Magus is an experimental rock outfit from Pretoria, South Africa. Doom, stoner, punk, psych, and classic rock are all common themes in their music. As huge fans of the rock greats (Zeppelin, Sabbath), stoner/desert rock behemoths (Kyuss, Sleep) as well as the tripped out psychedelic stylings of modern “psych” bands like Slift. Acid Magus take inspiration from all kinds of great music, spanning the entire gamut from 60s Hendrix and The Doors to Hawkwind and Scorpions at their heaviest, all this with maybe a little Alt Rock sensibility thrown in for good measure.

The band’s debut album Wyrd Syster was released in 2021 to widespread acclaim from fans and heavy music media. 2023 see Acid Magus returning as a 5 piece with a new vocalist and the addition of a second guitarist, as well as a brand-new album Hope Is Heavy, set for release later this year on Mongrel Records.

Demon Behemoth is the crushing first single from the forthcoming album. Guitarist and chief songwriter Keenan Kinnear explains, “Demon Behemoth is not only the first single but also the first track off our upcoming sophomore album, Hope is Heavy. The entire album is a concept dealing with me realizing how I am slowly becoming more cynical with age. Every song on the album, including Demon Behemoth, is a cross-section of my psyche, self-analyzed for the sake of solving the “great cynicism” I am experiencing at the moment and searching for the silver lining in what constantly seems to be an increasingly grim outlook.”

In the faint light that separates dreams from reality, lies from truth and heaven from hell, lives the Acid Magus. Meditating, surrounded by darkness and light, energizing the air with electric anticipation. Come forward and listen, stay awhile, there are no sins…

https://www.facebook.com/acidmagus
https://www.instagram.com/acidmagus/
https://acidmagus.bandcamp.com/

http://mongrelrecords.com
http://www.facebook.com/mongrelrecords
http://www.instagram.com/mongrel_records
https://mongrelrecords1.bandcamp.com/

Acid Magus, “Demon Behemoth”