(written by Islander)
Ex Cinere is the solo work of Joe Waller, who has also created music under the name Sarasvati and with Adora Vivos and Amiensus (among other projects and groups). The last time we wrote about Ex Cinere (and the first time) was near the release of a 2024 debut single called “Ācennan“, which was followed later that year by a second single named “Eorþblód“.
What we’re presenting today is a video for another single, “Negative Commemoration“, so named because its intent is to restore a bit of truth to the whitewashing of an ugly figure on a day set aside for his sanctification by people who enthusiastically still traffic in his ugliness.
Here is how Joe Waller explains his reasons for making this song and video:
As the current US administration is forcing a National Day of Remembrance for Charlie Kirk, I wanted to add my voice to the legions that despise this celebration of a man who held and distributed Christian Nationalist and fascist ideals. This video contains Kirk’s own words, showing his blatant support of these beliefs.
Fascism blames immigrants and minorities for the nation’s problems. It beckons back to a golden age and promises restoration of a lost era. It demands fierce nationality and ethnocentricity. And it fabricates an existential threat to religion, morality, and culture in order to force authoritarian measures.
Charlie Kirk was not an American hero. Charlie Kirk was a fascist. Let us remember him for who he was.
The music itself is the beginning of a collection of shorter songs, inspired by our deteriorating world, to be released in the near future with my project Ex Cinere.
How better to remember someone for who they were than by turning to their own words? As Waller explains, that’s what the video does, reminds us of some of Kirk’s own words. No one could rightly claim the words are out of context — they are merely a handful of examples drawn from great volumes of other statements by Kirk that are equally revolting, if not more so (to see some of the proof, if you need it, go here). The fact that he was murdered (something neither we nor Waller are condoning or celebrating) doesn’t change what he was or the damage he caused (and that his legacy is still causing).
The intensity of Ex Cinere‘s music accompanying the quotations is searing. It doesn’t include vocals, but the burning and blindingly brilliant waves of sound in the track’s upper register sound like massed spectral entities wailing, in the throes of agony or fury or both. Within those otherworldly audio tides, even more shrill and screaming frenzies can be heard.
Ex Cinere also jolts its listeners with megaton detonations of sound that include frenzied low-frequency undulations, rapid-fire percussive fills, and outright blasting, yet another way of dialing up the intensity to astonishing proportions.
By the way, if you have a problem with our site providing a platform for a video like this, then quickly take yourself away to another platform.