My soundtrack for a Setian apocalypse.
2020 has been a year of horrors. Apart from the pandemic and watching the world burn and living beneath a stumbling demented child-king, I have essentially lost my mother, even though she is still alive. There have been so many times this year that I have wanted to just give up and die. But in searching for ways to cope with all the madness, I have at least been able to channel my immense grief into the work I do. Creating the In the Desert of Set podcast, the Summer’s End album, and other artistic projects has been very therapeutic to me, and I hope these works prove helpful to others too.
The week of the 2020 American presidential election was so taxing on my nerves and emotional state that I couldn’t eat, sleep, or concentrate on anything much; I couldn’t even focus on writing any sermons. All I could do was try to capture the fear, despair, and rage inside me in music. In doing so, I have surprisingly put together a new full-length album just one month and some change after releasing Summer’s End.
This work, His Nocturnal Majesty, is something like a soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist. It is very much inspired by two of my favorite films, The Final Conflict (1981) and John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness (1987), which both deal with the apocalypse and ultimate evil in ways that subvert organized religious dogmas. (In The Final Conflict, the Antichrist is defeated by a godless feminist and single mother; in Prince of Darkness, Lucifer turns out to be the Supreme Being!) I’ve always wanted to see something of this unique subgenre that takes its cues from Kemetic rather than biblical sources. I have tried developing this premise into some kind of novel, comic, movie or TV show for decades, but I can never seem to figure out just how I want the story to go, or even who the characters are.
All I know is, I had a terrible nightmare back in the 2000s that I have never forgotten. In this dream, the world had grown so irredeemably evil and corroded that the very fabric of reality started to unravel, and the Chaos Serpent was finally able to slither into this world and devour us all PHYSICALLY. It appeared in the sky, big enough to blot out the sun and the stars, just a gaping giant mouth surrounding the globe, ready to swallow and digest us into its putrid gut. It was suddenly nighttime all over the world at the same time, and people and animals were all losing their minds and eating each other in the streets. But just when all seemed lost, a big beefy red hand came out of nowhere and knocked the Serpent right back into hell. And somehow, this battle between Set and Apep above our atmosphere was being magically reflected in a battle here on earth between some courageous heroes and these profoundly evil terrorists who actually wanted the world to be eaten.
I awoke from this crazy dream scared out of my mind—I will never forget seeing the sky turn into a MOUTH like that—and I knew I had to do something with it. Like I said, I struggled to develop it into any kind of coherent story with interesting characters. I can’t even draw the things I imagine; my drawing style is a little too cute and cartoony-looking for me to stomach its inclusion in a concept as serious and heavy as this. But while I was sitting there screaming in silence during the 2020 election, I kept thinking about that crazy nightmare, and it hit me rather suddenly: I just released Summer’s End, which is kind of like my soundtrack for a Halloween-themed movie that doesn’t exist. Why not turn this other movie that doesn’t exist into an album too? And next thing I knew, I had 50 minutes of new music ready to release.
My first plan was to sit on this material and wait to release it till next year, in case I wanted to make any changes. Something in my brain said, “You just released an album, wait till next year to release the next one.” But I have listened to this thing over and over again non-stop all week, and I’m pretty sure it’s finished now; His Nocturnal Majesty is ready for the public. I also get the sense that Set would like it very much if I released this album so people can enjoy it now. After all, why wait? Maybe hearing this stuff might really help someone. Well I don’t know who you are, but here you go; I hope you enjoy this latest batch of Kemetic Setian darkwave goodness!