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: Caitlin Mkhasibe of P+A+G+E+S

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

For our album, No More Can Be Done, I’ve been asked by other musicians if I’m bored when playing sparsely and I’ve responded that it’s actually challenging to deliberately play slowly and maintain a decent sense of timing for the band to rely on. My body finds ways to fill in the gaps and that comes in the form of movement. I saw on KEXP, Cheryl Waters noted that Adrienne Davies of ‘Earth’ dances behind the kit. Helo (guitarist) and Frank (bassist) do watch me closely for timing visual cues. I follow everyone too, but if I mess up, it’s the most noticeable mistake out of everyone’s cavernous sound, so there’s a lot of pressure to stay present.

In my mind, a lot of my accented cymbals are back-up vocals too. What I enjoy is that I’m not trying to impress listeners with ‘chops’ or drown out anyone else in the band, and if I do play faster or fuller, it’s relevant to the intention of the song. We really worked hard towards this.

I love that I’m inevitably going to play shows predominantly in spaces full of men, and they’re going to have to exercise a kind of respectful patience and listening to me that I wouldn’t normally get in everyday life. It’s very feminist and I hope more women and girls of colour who know me as a quiet and shy person feel like they can take up space with their drums too.
The first time I played drums was at 13 in my friend’s bedroom. Her older brother’s band used her room as storage and we took turns on the kit and played basic rock beats, suggesting ideas to each other.

I want every time I play to feel as welcoming and fun. I’ve heard too many horror stories from women who’ve said, as teens, their male music teachers sexually assaulted them, were misogynists who held them back on purpose or that it felt unsafe to play live. That trauma deterred them from their instrument for a while. I really took my safe passage into drums for granted. Women, non-binary and transgender folks defy many odds by picking up an instrument.

In various settings, patriarchal men feel entitled to being hyper critical of us because of internalized self-hatred. To them, everything we do is lame by default so we’re easily disregarded or irrelevant. Perfectionism is a patriarchal prison and I think truly living is challenging the -isms or making grumpy, oppressive people irritable.

Describe your first musical memory.

My late gran singing and consoling five-year-old me on my parent’s stoep. She knew many unfamiliar British songs and hymns. I started ballet and gymnastics around that time too so there was a lot of forgettable music on tape to stiff choreography on mats, wooden floors, by barres and on stages.

I’ll give another early memory: No matter how ferociously loud the music in my headphones were, nothing drowned out my late dad’s Pan Pipe: Moods CD playing in the car on long car rides to a Zulu family wedding or funeral where people would sing there. My dad was the calmest driver ever though.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

In 2015, as an opening band for a show, we did soundcheck and the sound engineer said, “Right, so as soon as the drummer arrives, you guys can start playing,” and while still sitting behind the kit I said, “I am the drummer”, and he looked bewildered.

Seeing ‘As Is’ play live was always phenomenal (Lliezel Ellick, Garth Erasmus, Manfred Zylla, Niklas Zimmer). In 2016, we did a show together once with their drummer, Andrea Dicò, at Alexander Theatre. For that performance, Andrea said I could pick anything from his metal suitcase of Milnerton thrift market trinkets to add to my kit. I was deeply honoured. His textural approach to drumming was really something myself and our guitarist, helo, resonated with. Andrea said his goal was to find the most messed up sounding kit and play it. That reminded me of Brian Chippendale from Lightning Bolt, without the mic and pedals.

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

At least by 2025, I hoped that the world would be a lot more progressive in its thinking and accountable in its responses to the environmental destruction caused by AI and the human rights violations from mining in Congo and the genocides in Sudan and Palestine. I’m surprised that anger is still not seen as a normal response to injustices of Capitalism or understanding that racism in all of its iterations stems from White Supremacy and it contorts us to uphold and coddle Whiteness. I can’t believe respectability politics still exist, even on the left.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

It leads to innovation, creativity and a more fulfilled society because we’re embracing ourselves. Hope is humbling.

How do you define success?

I believe award systems are biased, so I don’t rely on them as guides. I do appreciate kind feedback and ways to improve from peers. Caring, doing your best, working collaboratively, working fairly, being proud of a finished project, being inspired and having okay mental health are all good measures of success for me when considering, contextually, the overculture protects itself and takes pleasure in punishing others for being different. Some people are also scared of finding themselves in the position of being the misunderstood ‘other’, so they self-police their own joy. Success is also just being yourself and being brave in standing up for unique people or what they create. Standing by some-one’s work, even if you’re the only one who sees its value, is huge to me.

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

I’m half Zulu, so, in one day, in the name of a patriarchal culture, I saw a goat crying for help before being slaughtered. Its guts were in a bucket. I saw the sweetest cow fighting against being slaughtered and eventually saw its body hung up while being carved out. Then I saw steaming hot, cooked tripe being dished on a plate. I absolutely despise the smell. I really don’t think I’ve lost my ‘Zulu-ness’ by being vegan for the past 10 years. : )

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

I’m also a visual artist and I have reccurring dreams of doing a residency. It’s located on an achingly beautiful mountain with patches of dense forest. I walk down a wide dirt road to get to the small town. I’ve almost mentally mapped out the whole place now. It keeps getting eerie and detailed per dream visit because of its surrealism and my anxiety around institutions. Maybe this will become an art residency horror comic.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art

It’s both refuge from and a mirror to the ugly world. It’s a space for marginalized voices, a medium for catharsis, to process trauma and is an empathy builder. I do not think intellectualizing and debating people’s humanity is art. It’s unethical because that’s rooted in racism, sexism, classism and queerphobia.

Say something positive about yourself.

As different as I feel I am, I’m proud of my self-belief, and in turn, that gives me hope in other people. I wish for people to be able to do what they love and that that makes them kinder.

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

I recently finished reading The High Desert by James Spooner (who also did Black Punk Now with Chris L. Terry) and Ducks by Kate Beaton. I’m looking forward to Ijeoma Oluo’s Be a Revolution and House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski.

https://linktr.ee/pages_doom
https://pagesdoom.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/pages_doom/
https://www.youtube.com/@PAGES_DOOM

P+A+G+E+S, No More Can Be Done (2025)

P+A+G+E+S, Black Room Session – Live at Sound and Motion Studios

This isn’t the end of the Quarterly Review — it wraps up on Monday — but it is the end of the week, and I’m ready for it. The music’s been good though and that’s something of a salvation for times where it seems like the strange and terrifying are in competition with each other to make life more awful. That doesn’t end on the weekend, of course, but at least I’ll have two days to put together the last post of this QR, and when you’ve been writing 10 reviews a day all week, half that counts as respite. Something like it, anyhow.

So before we wrap up the week with whatever on earth I’ll actually pick to close it out (any requests?), here’s one more batch, with my thanks for your valuable time and attention. Hope you find something cool.

Quarterly Review #51-60:

P+A+G+E+S, No More Can Be Done

No More Can Be Done is the debut album from South Africa’s P+A+G+E+S, but the Cape Town trio spent five years in the 2010s together as Morning Pages, so that their first record would hold so much intention behind it shouldn’t necessarily be a shocker. The reason behind the name change? An apparent change in their project, which is to say the band got way, way darker, way, way heavier and nasty in that sharp-toothed-thing-you-can’t-see-but-you-know-is-there-also-there-are-no-lights kind of way. The 15-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “The Passage” leads the way down into the bleak, extreme sludge that follows, but as the careful linear build of “Shine On” later demonstrates, P+A+G+E+S are more methodical than the noise and outwardly chaotic feel would seem to indicate. Atmosphere plays a central role in what they do, and that’s consistent from their run as Morning Pages, but No More Can Be Done is about what’s lurking and lurching in the bleakness.

P+A+G+E+S Linktr.ee

P+A+G+E+S on Bandcamp

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Bask, The Turning

Following the intro “Chasm,” Bask launch their fourth album, The Turning, with minor-key mystique and subsequent crush via “In the Heat of the Dying Sun” and “The Traveler,” piling triumph upon triumph in a way that is indicative of the progressive songwriting at work. “The Cloth” is slower, but neither less weighted nor less gorgeous for that, and as “Dig My Heels” works in some of the Southern/Americana pastoralism the Asheville, North Carolina, outfit have always been known for, the melody proves a standout, setting up another life-affirming payoff in the seven-minute “Unwound,” the mellower turn for the build of “Long Lost Light” and the somewhat wistfully twanging undertones of the title-track, which closes with grace and poise rare enough in heavy anything. Clearly a band who have worked to and been successful in transcending their root influences, and an identity that’s been hard-forged over their decade-plus. The Turning sees them actively bring their approach to another level.

Bask on Bandcamp

Season of Mist website

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Matus, El Aullido b/w Planetario

A 15-minute two-songer from Lima, Peru’s Matus, as the psychedelic weirdo sometimes-cultists of long standing offer “El Aullido” (8:45) and “Planetario” (6:55) as their first outing since 2021’s Espejismos II (review here). Both processions — and they are that — feel built out from jams, but the recordings have guitarist Manolo Garfias and keyboardist Richard Nossar (both also alternate bass duties) at their core, along with Roberto Soto‘s drumming, Veronik‘s theremin in the deep-freakout section of “Planetario,” Úrsula Inga‘s vocals on “El Aullido,” and so on with other guests (including Camilo Uriarte, who co-produced and mixed, along solo artist Chino Burga on guitar, and Cristóbal Pérez on sax for “Planetario”) adding to the movement. “El Aullido” pairs shoegaze with a roll informed by South American folk, perfect for Inga‘s vocals, while “Planetario” carries more of its melody in the keyboards and surrounding ambience. It’s a welcome check-in from Matus as they celebrate the 20th anniversary of the band.

Matus on Bandcamp

Matus on Facebook

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November Fire, 2025

Where New England bizarropsych rockers November’s Fire‘s 2024 album, Through a Mournful Song, took an approach to its material like some of earliest Monster Magnet‘s underproduced kitchen-sink quirk, the two-song EP 2025 presents two different faces, and that turns out to be because the songs included are over 30 years old. “2025” and “Somnia” — the latter which brings in original guitarist Greg Brosseau for a guest spot that includes clean lead vocals — were allegedly written in the early 1990s, and if you told me the root of the title-track was a teenaged thrash riff, they make that easy enough to believe in the modernized, thickened chug of the song as it stands now. That is to say, they’ve brought it into the sludgy experimentalist context of the work now, but it remains dark. As it inevitably would. “Somnia” is shorter, has some backing chants, and feels meditative even as the guitar holds to its restlessness. Weird band staying weird, screwing around with their old stuff and getting something out of it. Sometimes an experiment works.

November Fire Linktr.ee

November Fire on Bandcamp

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Goatmilker, Goatmilker

Bergen, Norway, four-piece Goatmilker don’t really leave you with much choice other than to call them progressive, though that hardly says boo about the reach of their self-titled debut, which is as much psychedelic punk as it is black metal in its rhythms, but remains a work of heavy rock and roll nonetheless, grooving, catchy on “Devils on My Tail,” aggro-weird on “Time… Tearing Apart,” all-in on tonal overwhelm for “Mountains” and cheekily grandiose in the finale “Storm” only after they’ve seen fit to take on Journey‘s “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart),” which given the goes-where-it-wants succession leading up to it hardly feels out of place at all. While at no risk of overstaying its welcome at eight songs and 34 minutes, Goatmilker does make for a challenging listen at times, but the rewards for actually paying attention to what they’re doing are worth whatever effort is required. That is to say, engage actively for best results.

Goatmilker Linktr.ee

Goatmilker on Instagram

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Grin, Incantation

If Grin sound a little different on Incantation, a two-track 7″ with a digital bonus cut in the flatteningly heavy “Echoes in the Static,” that might be because the duo of drummer/vocalist Jan Oberg and bassist Sabine Oberg didn’t record themselves as usual, but instead tracked live at Wave Akademie in their native Berlin with Anton Urban (Jan Oberg co-produced, mixed and mastered, so still had a hand for sure). So, rather than the studio leftovers one might expect mere months after the band’s last full-length, Acid Gods (review here), the songs may have their origins as such but arise from different circumstances. There’s some more of a wash to “Incantation” and “The Color of Ghosts,” and “Echoes in the Static” is consumed by its titular noise toward its finish, but “The Color of Ghosts” dares some melodic vocals amid all that bombast, and as usual, Grin forge their own take on metal, sludge and intense atmospheric heavy.

Grin on Bandcamp

The Lasting Dose Records on Bandcamp

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Mezzoa, TON 618

A collection of bangers on the second LP through Glory or Death Records from San Diego rockers Mezzoa, TON 618 plays out over the course of a taut 13 songs and 39 minutes, careening desert style in “Hard to Hear,” punking up the groove in “Chump” before basking in Sabbath worship for “Wasted Universe” (think “Symptom” thereof), building crunching tension in “Uncle Cho” only to release it in the second half of the song with a grunge melody, carrying that melody into “Smiles for Everyone,” and then slamming all that momentum into the fuzzed radness of the lead tone and Alice in Chainsy vocal of “How You Been.” That’s not the end, I’m just less efficient than the band and so I’m running out of space. “Blessing” attains inner Nirvana while “Desert Snakes” sounds like it’s ready for a John Garcia guest spot, “Chachi Liberachi” echoes the sharper corners of “Wasted Universe,” “Goin’ Down” has that riff that every New York hardcore song ever (yes, all of them. don’t @ me.) has but goes somewhere completely different with it, and closer “How Are We” highlights the craft that’s let them do it all in the first place. Hey kid, you like rock music? Well get a load of this.

Mezzoa on Bandcamp

Glory or Death Records website

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Orsak:Oslo, Silt and Static

Beginning with its longest track in the nine-minute “Biting In,” Orsak:Oslo‘s Silt and Static finds the Norwegian/Swedish outfit somewhat outgrown from their dronier foundations, harnessing a psychedelia that moves with krautrocking purposes, while retaining the band’s previously-established ambient instrumentalist approach. “Days Adrift” is an even thicker roll, with ebbs and flows that give precedent to the shove that results in “Salt Stains,” which follows, while “Petals” dips momentarily into minimalism. But the story here is the fullness of sound, with pieces like the subdued-but-building “Resonance in Ash” or “Petals” in conversation with Pelican/Russian Circles-style heavy, while “The Onward Stride” and “Time Leak” bring prog more to the forefront and “Bread and Sink” lets the rumble bring it all together. In these ways, Silt and Static rewrites the story of Orsak:Oslo as a band, and their reach has never seemed so broad.

Orsak:Oslo website

Vinter Records website

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Modder, Destroying Ourselves for a Place in the Sun

The hypnotic drone finish of “Type 27” that ends side A of Modder‘s second album, Destroying Ourselves for a Place in the Sun, is just one way the band incorporate ambience as a key element in their trades between loud and quiet, tense and open, and crushing and spacious. These different sides come together in various combinations across the six cuts on the Belgian instrumentalist five-piece’s 41-minute run, which sets out in oppressive and blasting fashion with “Stone Eternal,” as heavy as whatever doom you want to put it next to and still able to hit with the precision of Gojira. The shorter “Mather” is more angular, glitchy and mirrored by “Chaoism” on the album’s second half, and though they lead off with their longest track (immediate points) in “Stone Eternal,” the heavy djenty chug that comes to fruition on “In the Sun” is unmistakable as anything but the closer, building, receding, tossing in what sure sounds like a human voice chanting and surging in intensity to round out with a keyboard-overlaid bludgeoning. By then you’re pretty much pulp anyway.

Modder Linktr.ee

Lay Bare Recordings website

Consouling Sounds store

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Futuredrugs, Past Warnings of Present Futures

Past Warnings of Present Futures tells you a lot about its point of view in the title, but electronic experimentalists Futuredrugs push the meaning deeper still, opening with a barely recognizable take on “What a Wonderful World” with “Skies of Blue” and revamping Tom Waits‘ “Dirt in the Ground” on “…And the Gallows Groaned.” The cinematic, dark synth/programmed backdrop of these and the sampled “No Home” blur the line between originality and reinterpretation/manipulation, and I won’t claim to know whether pieces like “Ice Age Coming” or “When the Last Tree Falls” are similarly sourced, but maybe. In any case, in a time when remembering things like “nothing matters anyway” is a comfort, there is space for the open-minded listener to dwell among these seven tracks, which when taken as a whole succeed in embodying the apocalyptic hellscape of recent years. I don’t know if they’re offering sanctuary so much as a snapshot, but as that, it sure feels like an accurate depiction.

Futuredrugs on Bandcamp

Futuredrugs on Instagram

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I’m not trying to be out here spoiling a thing that’s not coming out for another two months, but if you check out P+A+G+E+S‘ debut album, No More Can Be Done, the Cape Town, South Africa, extreme atmospheric sludge trio open with a 15-minute slab of worldmaking grimness called “The Passage,” and indeed it’s kind of like being passed from beneath a grindstone to whatever chute has been tasked with extricating the chaff. A crushing plunge, in other words.

If you’re the type to capitalize letters when typing using the caps lock button, their moniker will be a challenge. I advise going with shift in typing it out. Is this a note to myself for an eventual album review? Maybe, but I’ve got more listening to do before I get there. There isn’t a single public from it yet or I’d probably have a Bandcamp player below, but if you want to get a sense of the vibe and all the surrounding void of the band photo and cover art aren’t enough of a hint where they’re coming from, then yes, for sure that clip should answer any questions you have. With punishment.

Note that this is their debut album but from 2014-2019 the band operated as Morning Pages, and there are still a few experimentalist singles you can find on Bandcamp if you’re remotely willing to search. Here’s what the PR wire brought:

P+A+G+E+S – No More Can Be Done – RELEASE DATE 25th October 2025

Cape Town’s doom, atmospheric noise, drone, and sludge post-metal trio P+A+G+E+S are set to unleash their debut full-length album, NO MORE CAN BE DONE, recorded with producer Simon Ratcliffe at Sound and Motion Studios between 3 and 7 February 2025. The album is a stark, slow-burning monolith of existential dread, geopolitical despair, environmental decay, and raw emotional weight—tempered by a glimmer of perseverance in a world teetering toward collapse. P+A+G+E+S’ message is to take note of environmental degradation and to challenge oppression by standing up for BIPOC, women, LGBTQI+, human and animal rights.

Since pivoting from their post-rock and noise roots in 2017, Caitlin Mkhasibe (drums), Frank Lunar (bass), and helo samo (guitar, vocals, sampling, and textural noise) have pushed their sound toward heavier, drudging territory. NO MORE CAN BE DONE represents the culmination of years of interrupted yet purposeful writing, with its earliest riffs born in late 2019 and its completion delayed by the global pandemic until writing resumed in March 2024.

“Grief and the depressing state of the world were big inspirations,” says the band. “We wanted to create something that embodies that state and cast a light on things that are often hard to address—while writing music we would want to hear ourselves.”

Musically, the album unfolds like a descent into shadow:

Side A begins as a metamorphosis of chaotic, jolting noise before shifting into an industrial, mechanical gait, eventually dissolving into a fragile, symphonic closure.

Side B surges forward with dissonant, discordant tones anchored by hefty, deliberate drums, each moment meticulously constructed.

Lyrically, the record distills vast, overwhelming concepts into simple mantras, delivered through a detached, almost spectral vocal style—an intentional choice to let meaning resonate in repetition.

The songs began with helo samo bringing guitar riffs to rehearsal, where the trio shaped and stripped ideas through process of elimination. Rough phone recordings became the blueprint, later evolving into demos tracked on an electronic kit and home setup. Vocals were initially captured on an SM58 in the back seat of a car, underscoring the band’s raw, unvarnished approach.

All instruments were tracked live in one room to preserve the immediacy and weight of their sound. After establishing the perfect mic configurations, the band spent days building the album layer by layer: foundational live takes, doubled guitars for stereo depth, noise and sampling textures, and finally, the haunting vocal performances.

Created by helo samo, the cover depicts the stages of a dandelion’s life cycle—symbolizing resilience and perseverance amidst chaos. The image’s calmness stands in deliberate contrast to the crushing sonic force within.

“The dandelion embodies the quality of being gentle but strong, spreading with the wind,” the band notes.

In four words – Slow, crushing, dissonant doom.

Track Listing:
1. The Passage
2. Ascension
3. Devastation Junkie
4. Shine On
5. Moribund

The members consist of Caitlin Mkhasibe (drums), Frank Lunar (bass), helo samo (guitar, vocals, sampling and textural noise).

https://linktr.ee/pages_doom
https://www.instagram.com/pages_doom/
https://www.youtube.com/@PAGES_DOOM

P+A+G+E+S, Black Room Session – Live at Sound and Motion Studios