(written by Islander)

For reasons obvious to anyone with their eyes and ears open, the Middle East is the focus of great attention these days, the broad locus of a war whose boundaries seem to be continuously expanding with no clear end in sight (and a certain orange-toned deviant raving about the “honor” of killing people. The black metal band Mulla probably did not foresee this staggering conflict would be happening around the release of the video we’re now premiering, but it’s not as if the current conflagration hasn’t happened there before.

To be clear, Mulla is not a Middle Eastern band, despite some confusion about their location (which the band themselves had a hand in generating). This duo is located in Kazakhstan, their lyrics are in their native tongue, and they are not practicing Muslims.

Their goal, as they have explained, “is neither preaching nor criticizing, but rather creating a unique cultural hybrid, a simulacrum with its own powerful poetics.” “This is a conceptual journey through mythologized landscapes, where images of Islamic culture (calligraphy, philosophical motifs, linguistics) become the colors of a black metal painting.”

The video we’re presenting is for a song called “Keıde ólim osynda júredi” from Mulla’s latest album Jannan (released in December 2025). Continue reading »