So pardon me while I burst into flames
I’ve had enough of the world and its people’s mindless games
In 1999, Incubus’s “Pardon Me” emerged as an anthem of late-millennial anxiety — a jagged fusion of nu-metal aggression and existential reflection. With its refrain of self-immolation and rebirth, the song became a generational mirror, capturing the unease of an era teetering between analog disillusionment and digital awakening.
Twenty-five years later, New York producer Vexillary resurrects the track through an entirely different lens. His electronic re-imagining — the first single from the forthcoming album Digital Suspiria — translates that turn-of-the-century angst into a sleek, dystopian techno-pop transmission. Stripped of its rock bravado and rebuilt as a mechanized hymn, “Pardon Me” pulses with steel tension and synthetic emotion, led by Baylee’s soaring, soul-baring vocals. It’s as if the original has been fed through an alien mainframe attempting to decode human sorrow.
The result is both intimate and futuristic: an icy fusion of 90s electronica and post-millennial melancholy, where sentimentality gives way to cybernetic grace. Beneath the circuitry, there’s still a spark of burning humanity — fragile, yearning, and defiantly alive.
In the self-directed video, self-immolation becomes metaphor. The protagonist (Ali Reed)— clad in high-vis orange pants and a white tank top — carries a red gas can through the concrete arteries of New York City. She wanders from tenement stoops to riverfront walkways, each frame poised between urban grit and quiet transcendence. The streets blur into static, like corrupted digital memory. At the climax, she tips the can over herself beneath a blazing sky — a baptism in petrol, reinterpreted as liberation. What could read as despair transforms into renewal, leaving the viewer suspended between destruction and rebirth. It ends with her sitting contemplative on a bench by the river.
It’s a fitting visual for Vexillary’s ongoing evolution. Known for his scientific precision and fascination with transformation, the artist (real name Reza Seirafi) approaches music like alchemy — combining the organic and the mechanical, the volatile and the serene. “Pardon Me” also marks his first use of guitar textures, threading raw human energy into his industrial-techno architecture.
Watch the video for “Pardon Me” below:
Vexillary is the brainchild of New York-based producer Reza Seirafi. A former chemist and perfumer, his work draws from the hidden chemistry between sound, scent, and emotion — blending decadent techno, darkwave, and EBM into volatile yet balanced experiments. After founding his label con:trace in 2021, Seirafi released the concept album Full Frontal Lunacy, followed by Crash and Yearn and the brooding Horror in Dub series. His forthcoming LP Digital Suspiria — arriving early 2026 — promises a new chapter of futuristic sheen and haunted songwriting.
Listen to Vexillary’s cover of “Pardon Me” below, and order here
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