(This past July Personal Records released a fine debut album [for which we did a premiere] by the Peruvian band Illwind, whose lineup was forged from members of some top South American bands such as Reino Ermitaño, Cobra, Arcada, and Argul. The album provided the impetus for our Comrade Aleks to re-connect with Illwind’s Marcos Koifman, and that produced the following excellent interview with him.)
About 10-15 years ago, the Peruvian band Reino Ermitaño was well-known to doom metal fans. The aesthetics of shamanic rituals, textured riffs, subtle psychedelia, bassist Marcos Koifman’s expressive artwork, and Tanya Duarte’s vocals among other features set the band apart from their contemporaries. Reino Ermitaño was disbanded, and its members joined new outfits, yet Marcos Koifman made his manifest only now with the new doom-act Illwind.
From the ten-minute heroic doom metal anthem “Crimson Skies”, and the down-to-earth “Wanderer” or “Portal,” to the droning stoner-armored “God of Sleep” and the hypnotic “Lucifer’s Mule”, Illwind proves their intention to make something special and refreshing for the underground Doom Cult. It was a proper reason to interview Marcos, as Illwind’s debut album The Unfolding at the End of Light did not go unnoticed for both NCS co-writers and dedicated readers.
Hi Marcos! Glad to hear from you again! How are you? What’s happening in your artistic life?
Hey Aleks! Glad to be in touch again as well. I’m fine… still myself. Older. Not going out as much as I used to. Still unwilling or unable to stop making heavy music. On that subject, for the last few years I’ve been committed only to Illwind, this new beast. I say “new”, although in truth we started the band some three-odd years ago, now… birthing our first album took us a bit more than expected. It happens. Other than that, I’ve been painting, as always… that’s basically it: Illwind and painting, family and work and getting through the days and the months and the years in this gray city by the sea, in Peru.
I think that nowadays the internet makes distances between countries way shorter, but I remember that even twenty years ago or so, it was a huge deal to discover a band from Peru. So is it so “gray” in Peru nowadays? In a wider sense of the word. Would you like to relocate?
You’re right. On this day and age, I often think I could drop my house in the middle of a crater or a jungle and be cool so long as it has wi-fi and food delivery. About the second part… well, the scene has grown, there’s no doubt to that. I think Reino Ermitaño is viewed as one of the first / second generation doom bands here, after which there’s been a whole bunch of bands that thrive and play regularly, so it’s not such a rare thing anymore… plenty of people at gigs nowadays, and Peruvian bands touring and publishing abroad more.
About the other thing: Lima is gray. We live under a gray sky for the most part of the year, we call it “Panza de burro”, the donkey’s belly. I have recorded a couple of albums with another project – a heavy psych blues rock creature – alongside Chino Burga from La Ira de Dios and Alonso Guerrero, presently playing in Argul – called La Garúa, which is the name for the version of rain in our city… a drizzle, more than fog, less than rain… our first album was named Panza de Burro Thunder Blues… winter takes up most of the year (on a good year) and it comes with mist from the sea… so you see, it’s not a gray that I dislike, quite the contrary, I hate the sun these days.
Relocating? Who knows. I have roots here, and I have Lima Gris under my skin. I’m 52 now. But maybe, I’m still up for an adventure or two, and my relationship with Europe is not over yet. My father and both my mom’s parents were from there, and I still have to get to know a few places there that are important to me. Plus, my son will be moving there soon. So, yeah, who knows… maybe.
First of all, Reino Ermitaño, your main creature. I watched for years, and since the last release only zero news appeared. What didn’t work after the Conjuros de Poder album? How was the band put on hold and then disbanded?
Well, also first of all: thanks for watching! It was a treat for us in Reino to be included in the Doom Metal Lexicanum back then; glorious book, brother! Cheers on that… as for the rest, after Conjuros de Poder, Reino did a European tour in 2014 and we played some great shows there – Hammer of Doom, Malta Doom Metal, Doom Over Vienna, one great fucking gig in Budapest opening for Trouble and many more… after that, we slowly started working on material for a new album – one of my own songs from back then eventually made its way into Illwind, in fact, on a different vibe – but as things go, Reino was not just my main creature, as you put it, it belonged to the lot of us in the band, and after a while life made it clear we were near our expiration date. The pandemic took care of finishing the job, we were done.
Almost twenty years and five records was a good run, though, and I remain proud and fulfilled with the music we made, the uncountable gigs we played and what we were able to achieve, such as it was. It was pretty unthinkable for a band like ours to imagine carving a space in the international scene as things were back then, really… so yeah… for sure a piece of my heart went into Reino Ermitaño, as it should be with all worthy artistic endeavors. We might do a reunion gig eventually, if it merits the effort. But we’re all into our own projects now, and I’m very happy to be where I am, in that regard.
I guess that most of your colleagues from Reino Ermitaño found new bands to express their creativity, what slowed you down with Illwind?
Yeah… Tania set out to form Titania with Eloy, and of course Eloy himself also fell back to Kranium, his first and main band, while Ñaka came up with Paquidermo, a super-heavy doom outfit with which he plays locally quite often, and he plays in another band called Velvet Pasuso, too. As for myself, eh, maybe it took me a bit longer to start over, I guess?
In truth, it was more the case of the record taking a while to come to life, but I never quite stopped writing music in my head, I can’t stop really. I don’t really write on command, for the most part… the riffs and melodies come up from my unconscious mind on their own when I’m distracted, hungover or close to falling asleep, and I have to catch them when something that may be worthwhile snaps into my attention while I’m zoned out. So yeah, after a while it was time to use all that material and shape it into something coherent.
It’s interesting that a lot of Peruvian bands share common musicians, and it’s easy to understand taking in account the size of the country and low interest in doom metal (sorry, but both of us know it). And I see that all Illwind members have a proper background in the local underground; there’s a lead guitarist of another band Argul, for example, Mauricio Guerrero. So how was the band formed? How long did it take to complete the working lineup?
Mauricio Guerrero, the lead guitarist, is my brother-in-law. We have old bonds and share years of common ground in music, as we’ve often lived closely, as family. He is, as you mention, the guitarist, singer and main creative voice in Argul, a pretty fucking awesome band, and if you listen closely to that one, you’ll recognize his influence in Illwind, for sure. Anyway, at some point we decided to give life to these songs I had, and at his suggestion we recruited Hokama, a fantastic drummer and overall great musician with a punk and black metal edge – he plays in DHK and Arcada, which is the top black metal band from this region, if you ask me – and we immediately found we had good chemistry, so the three of us set out to work and shape the mostly crudely-structured songs that I had: some were old ideas and some materialized during our first months practicing.
Also, Eddie Plenge – a close friend and the sound engineer for many of the records I’ve been involved in, including the last three Reino Ermitaño albums, both La Garúa albums, and more – well, he dug the idea of this new project and offered to come along as a producer, so he was in since the beginning and had a hand in the inception of our first album. We recorded at Dragonverde, his studio. First we laid down a demo, worked on the songs from that, and months later we recorded the real deal. Hokama played the rhythm guitar on the record, as we were a three-piece when we laid down the bulk of it, but soon it was evident we needed another guitar for the band to achieve the full sound and be able to play all the arrangements in a live situation, so nearing the album’s completion we hooked up with Andres Rhor, a gnarly guitarist whom we knew from his time with Cobra – another top band from here – trve as fuck, premium classic heavy metal! Since the album was already nearly done when Andres joined the band, he only got to put in a couple of solos, but the new stuff will surely have more of his imprint.
So, in short, I was lucky to find myself in the company of some creative and seasoned musicians who were willing to play the tunes I wrote and add a lot of talent into the mix.
What meaning did you put in the band’s title? Did you have an overall concept when you shaped the band and its first material?
I dig the name. A bad omen, a sense of foreboding, an inescapable feeling of dread, an accursed pestilence. And also, the wind. And the air, dark as it may be. And yeah, as one word, so they know we mean business. That was enough, felt right.
It sounds striking indeed. And it works well with the artwork. Your style, your trademark is an absolutely recognizable thing… Do you usually offer already complete artworks for bands or do you prefer working individually with each album?
Thank you, I will take that as a compliment, for sure. It’s good for a painter or any artist to develop a recognizable style, I think. As for the few chances I get to paint a cover for a band, it’s always custom… I paint it while I listen to the band’s music on a loop. See what it inspires and conjures, then and there. In general, when I paint I try to get in a state where my chatty mind doesn’t disturb the flow too much. Listening to music, loudly, does that job. Part of your mind focuses on the sound, the other part is free to ramble on and communicate through a different language, a bit less-bound by thought and self-awareness.
Your first album The Unfolding at the End of Light was released in July. How far did the news spread? Do you feel that Reino Ermitaño fans noticed it and your reputation keeps pushing the band further? Or was it mainly the label’s work?
It was the label. Great work by Mexico’s Personal Records. I did think at the beginning that maybe some of Reino Ermitaño’s reputation might help us get record deals quick and easily, and perhaps it helped some, but I clearly over-estimated its impact, as we’re still expecting to come upon a vinyl deal with a label 🙂 But I don’t know man, maybe some people out there notice what I do on account of what I’ve done, who’s to say? I certainly can’t tell from my perspective.
Truth is, though: for the most part when you start over, you start over. And I am not so well-known that news of my new band would resonate so far as to open doors on account of reputation alone. And that’s fair. I do believe Illwind’s music speaks for itself, and will carve its own path. Or it won’t. The important part is that it was made and that it is out there.
I like the album: the songs are quite catchy, their construction is well-designed, and it differs from something we could expect from just traditional doom band. And it differs from Reino Ermitaño as well. What influenced you this time? And is the album a result of common effort? How did you compose it?
Thank you. I’m glad it sounds different from Reino, too; I wanted Illwind to have its own impetus and character, and it does. About writing, like I said in a previous question: some bits were old, some were new, and some new songs and parts came up during the inception of the band. I didn’t set out with too much of a specific north or a musical influence in mind, just playing from within, same as always. I never cared for trying to play in the style of so-and-so, you know? It’s much more exciting for me to let the way-different, many styles of music that I love and listen to make their way into what we’re creating and influence it naturally.
And Illwind’s music certainly is birthed from a common effort. I may have taken care of the main structures and melodies, the riffs and vocals and whatnot, but most of the arrangements came up from the rest of the guys, after we fucked around and fiddled with the songs for a bit. Besides: what’s important is the music that happens when we play together, through our synergy as musicians, the shared experience of playing the songs and the feel that we share doing so… so, yeah… this is no solo project by any means, it’s a band for sure.
You mentioned a song, which you composed for Reino Ermitaño and which ended up in Illwind. What is it? How much did you change to make it different?
“Lucifer’s Mule”, although it didn’t originally go by that name. It was a song that I’d been working on for some years. Its first iteration happened in rehearsals with a side-project named Yiggael, which I did with Reino’s drummer and Kaiser, the guitarist and vocalist from Los Entierros (with whom we’re entertaining the possibility of a new incarnation of that band – but that’s news for another time). Afterwards, I brought the song to Reino and we practiced it for a while, it was a shorter version, the key was sharper and the tempo was a bit faster, and it didn’t have some of the middle “more modern metal” parts – Reino we tried to keep a bit more ’70s based, you see, or at least I did. And it was in Spanish, of course. But yeah, it found its final shape in Illwind. Love that song.
There are some stoner influences in The Unfolding at the End of Light, and that’s a logical development of the doom basis. There’s even a proto-black “deviation” in “Crimson Skies”, but first of all it’s about doom metal. Do you have an experience of playing another genre? Did you force yourself to leave doom’s comfort zone?
Nah, nothing was forced, everything felt comfortable and right. About stepping out of doom: I have played in a more blues-oriented outfit, as I said before, and also in punk and hardcore bands, as well as ’70s heavy prog-rock ones, so it’s not just trad-doom for me. And I do love some black metal, even if I’m not much of an expert in the genre. We feel it binds beautifully with the heavy-riffs in the music we make, so expect a bit more of that pairing in what’s to come.
Do you have a general direction for Illwind lyrics? How would you resume it?
As a general direction… I’ll take some poetic license here and say: towards the inside, and the underside. Towards dream. Towards pleasure and the realm of a darker light, if there is such a thing.
Not to say that there is absolutely no common ground threading the songs together, but each one is his own thing. “Crimson Skies” is a defiant statement, an irrevocable split with the good Lord, a proper declaration of enmity. “Portal” – as well as “Wanderer” – deal with abandoning this tame and toiling day-to-day reality where we spend so much hope and catch so much grief, and of traveling through our own inner-realms. “God of Sleep” was written a while ago… my wife was expecting our child and somehow, in a way, it stares in that direction, but it mostly speaks through the voice of my grandmother, who raised me, after she came back to the world from a Nazi concentration camp in Eastern Europe, so it has some deeply embedded feelings in there… the choral voices you hear in the second half of the song actually came from a Mellotron with a vocal polyphonic recording of an old Soviet choir – the choir of dead Russians, as we lovingly referred to it. It was a good fit.
The lyrics in “Lucifer’s Mule” begin as a conversation with a long-dormant Lucifer, and carry on to become his own voice, as he goes through a sort of re-awakening. The title The Unfolding at the End of Light is precisely about what it seems to portray… that moment in the evening when you become something more than yourself. The cover painting delves into that idea a bit more explicitly, but I’ll leave it at that. It’s always best when people make art theirs and make their own personal relationship with it and let that bloom and grow, and besides I’ve never said quite so much about my lyrics at any time, ever, ha!
I will say this, though: it has been so refreshing to write lyrics in English. After so many songs in previous bands, I had grown sick of rhyming the same words over and again, I guess I ran out of vocabulary. This felt like a fresh start in more than one way.
Thanks for the in-depth answer, it’s much appreciated and it helps to get music better always. By the way, subjectively, Reino Ermitaño’s lyrics were more “neutral”, beyond good and evil, so to tell, as you partly rely on shamanic experience or so it seemed. And Illwind leaves a more “evil” or bitter imprint, more morbid, maybe. Do you see it as a more natural way to express yourself today?
Well, we’re stepping on a wider, deeper subject here. I don’t want to drown you with words, so I’ll just say the following: about the shamanic, Ayahuasca / tribal part of the lyrics and compositional treatment in Reino Ermitaño, well, that part didn’t really belong to me – although it has my respect, for sure, and I did take part in a Ayahuasca ceremony with the band once – but my contribution to the vibe, both then, as well as in Illwind, is focused more on other things. There’s an interest in the within and introspection, and magic and ritual, for sure. But like I said, the shamanic and, say, aboriginal part of Reino wasn’t my doing, it came from other members’ experiences and interest.
And yes, I lean towards the dark, I find beauty and comfort in it. “God” is an abstract, yes? A blanket we throw over the mystery to give it shape, as ACDC’s road manager famously said. And we sculpt and shape the unknown, and we anthropomorphize it to fit our brain’s needs to connect with the incomprehensible. Well, since we are driven to enact such an egocentric experiment to connect with the larger energies, since the end of time, in the same romantic spirit, I’ll admit the word for “god” in my lifetime has never quite rung so right and beautiful and mine as “Lucifer”. So there, do what you will with that.
There’s The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” cover amidst your own songs. A great piece, yet a very unusual choice. How did it appear in the album?
Thank you. What can I say, I love The Stooges and this version – meaning in this tempo and style – was stuck in my brain for days, so we let it out. It came out on the CD as a bonus track, as we didn’t think it would fit in an LP’s total length. We also recorded a (quite different!) version of a Smiths’ song, which we’ll release and some point. We listen to many kinds of different music anyway, and find it much more interesting to play an interpretation of a song from a different genre, than you know… nobody needs to hear our take on Electric Funeral. There is quite the short-list for future covers (or rather versions) from what will surely look like odd-choices to the regular doom-head. Really looking forward to playing and recording that.
Did something change regarding gigs since Reino Ermitaño times? Is it easier now for bands to play live in your area? Do you search to play live with Illwind as often as possible? Or is it a “weekend warrior” approach in the end?
Well, the scene has grown a lot for sure, there are plenty more bands and gigs happening within the Lima heavy underground. I most certainly do not seek to play as often as possible, but we’ll gladly play if the show is well set-up and the sound is proper-good and crushing. I have played enough venues with shitty sound and small gear in my life to last me a while, and while I do think that there are some styles that are fit to play in all sorts of raunchy setups, for B-tuned, HEAVY doom metal, to play without the proper volume and low-end capacity does the music a disservice, the audience will not get the experience it deserves, and we won’t enjoy ourselves, and if we’re not going to revel in the pleasure of the thick sound-wall as we play, well, what’s the point?
Our practice space sounds good enough for our spiritual high, and laying down the music in records is the priority at the moment. So, no shit-sounding gigs is the north, if at all possible. We do aim to tour, however. There’s a Chilean adventure coming up next year and, hopefully, as the second album progresses and our music spreads through the international scene a bit more, we’ll set up a European tour to bring the rumble across the pond and play a bunch of gigs there. That’s the plan, anyway.
What are your further plans for the rest of 2026?
Mostly to hone-in on the new material and make it as strong as possible, get it ready and record the new album, which so far is shaping up to be a very heavy and very eclectic beast. There are plenty enough good-feels on our first record… the second one may be more merciless. Yeah.
Okay, Marcos, I wouldn’t like to hurry you with questions about any new material. I hope that we’ll have a chance to discuss it when the stars align. Thank you for this interview, thank you for your time. So did we skip something important?
Thank you, Aleksey, always a pleasure, man. Thank you for the insight and the attention and the interesting questions, I think we went through a lot here! I’m always up for discussion with you so, whenever the stars align again… I’m here! Best of luck with all your projects and keep an eye out for what’s coming next from our camp. Cheers, brother.
https://illwind666.bandcamp.com/album/the-unfolding-at-the-end-of-light
https://personal-records.bandcamp.com/album/the-unfolding-at-the-end-of-light