Photo Credit: Twan Spierings

(At the end of September Eisenwald released Spiritus Sylvestris, an excellent new album by  the Dutch band Iskandr, and that moved Comrade Aleks to get in touch, leading to the following interview with founder Omar K.)

Iskandr was started by multi-instrumentalist Omar K. in around 2016 as his solo black metal project. The solo-project turned into a duo as the drummer Mink Koops joined Omar, and since then they started to work together.

Primordial and natural, Iskandr’s black metal evolved from Heilig land (2016) to Euprosopon (2018), and then from less blackened Vergezicht (2021) to brand new and ethereal Spiritus Sylvestris, which was released on September 29th.

The chain of metamorphoses leads the project to a new form that combines black metal spirit and a deep, in some ways heathen magical, and almost psychedelic, experience. As Omar, the band’s ideologist, says: “I wanted to write a eulogy to the world we have lost; a funeral dirge for the natural world we have left behind and an omen to the world that is to come”.

We caught Omar in the middle of Iskandr’s tour, but he found time to answer a few questions. Continue reading »