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: Ricardo Jimenez Gómez of Pylar and Orthodox

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

What I do is try to give back to metal music a part of what it has contributed to my life. Since the first meeting, the obsession has only increased. That obsession is what makes me continue exploring and traveling paths not yet traveled.

Describe your first musical memory.

Seeing my father watching Pink Floyd concerts sitting in the dark in the living room. Watching my father shave in the bathroom while he hummed Beatles songs. My mom singing to me while she was cooking. Playing Christmas carols with my Casio SA-20.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

When nothing was expected and everything seemed static, the hands of Hasjarl and Horror Illogium suddenly appeared to show that there were still unexplored regions in metal. That hierophany, which lasted for months, made me regain the desire to continue searching, to cause my own cracks in the limits of metal.

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

On a musical level I have not experienced that. In the rest of the areas, I do it daily.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

To mix everything over and over again until civilizational decay returns us to the regional.

How do you define success?

Being able to capture an artistic work with the same ease as Mozart or Cartarescu. Destroy existing paradigms through works that transcend the limits of the imagination.

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

The whiteness of the leviathan, the non-Euclidean geometries of R’lyeh, the conjunction of the mirror and the encyclopedia that led to the discovery of Uqbar, the depths of the desert of Sonora while searching for Cesárea Tinajero, the heart of the heart of Grothendieck, the paintings in Roderick Usher’s house, the island of Tsalal, those tears…

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

A hyperstitional entity.

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

Make us contemplate that blinding place that Mircea Cartarescu describes.

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

Does non-musical exist?

http://pylar.bandcamp.com
http://www.facebook.com/PPYLARR
http://www.instagram.com/pylar_the_band

https://www.facebook.com/orthodoxband/
http://orthodoxband.bandcamp.com/

http://humointernacional.com
http://www.instagram.com/humointl

Pylar, Límyte (2023)

Orthodox, “Countess Bathory” (Venom cover)

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: Ricardo Jimenez Gómez of Pylar and Orthodox

—

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

Metal as a style has given me countless moments of satisfaction and happiness since it crossed my life almost 30 years ago. In each of my projects as a musician, my goal is to give back to the style some of that fun. To do this, I try to expand its language and expand its limits, with the aim of taking metal to unexplored regions, what I call speculative metal.

Describe your first musical memory.

I have two early memories, though I don’t know which came first: seeing my father sit in the dark at the living room watching a Pink Floyd show, or hearing my father humming Beatles songs over the radio while he was shaving.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Working with Billy Anderson and having him appreciate and enjoy my playing and compositions.

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

I’ve never had to put anything on the line at that level as a musician. I have always acted with personal enjoyment as the main objective.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

Progression is a western concept that refers to linear time and that there is always a place to reach. I prefer to see the matter in such a way that artistic manifestations are portals or thresholds and that if you always open or pass through the same ones, the enjoyment decreases.

Walking through a familiar place where you feel good is nice, but for me nothing beats the feeling of stepping into the unknown: following the distant sounds of the white whale’s hunt described by Melville, imagining what those insane sounds described by Lovecraft sound like, trying to perceive the electromagnetic crackles described by Reza Negarestani in the Cyclonopedia, trying to mix the sound of Manowar with Black Flag…

How do you define success?

Penetrate the dark dreamlike complexities of time to search for the abyssal sediments of the meaning matter.

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

Jaws, the movie, when I was a boy. Since then I have thalassophobia.

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

Music created only with synthesizers.

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

Opening cracks in our minds.

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

Visit Gobekli-Tepe.

http://pylar.bandcamp.com
http://www.facebook.com/PPYLARR
http://www.instagram.com/pylar_the_band

https://www.facebook.com/orthodoxband/
http://orthodoxband.bandcamp.com/

http://humointernacional.com
http://www.instagram.com/humointl

Pylar, Abysmos (2022)

Orthodox, “Countess Bathory” (Venom cover)