Lingua Ignota

Jul 25 2019

'CALIGULA' Album Review // Pitchfork

(via Pitchfork)

On her torrential second album, Kristin Hayter creates a murderous amalgam of opera, metal, and noise that uses her classical training like a Trojan Horse, burning misogyny to ash from its Judeo-Christian roots.

Eight minutes into her torrential second album as Lingua Ignota, Kristin Hayter lets out a thundering, apocalyptic scream: “I don’t eat, I don’t sleep [...] I let it consume me,” she cries. Her voice is so ugly and shredded and maniacal and alive that it creates a witness of anyone who hears it. It is the sound of trauma, that which is by definition intolerable, and Hayter traverses its most upsetting depths on behalf of survivors, including herself. With Caligula, she has created a murderous amalgam of opera, metal, and noise that uses her classical training like a Trojan Horse, burning misogyny to ash from its Judeo-Christian roots. 

Jul 15 2019

CALIGULA, Album of the Week // Treble

(via Treble)

There’s no ignoring Kristin Hayter’s voice. She’s not so much a singer as an exorcist, her impassioned and intense, bordering on outright terrifying vocal presence can ably transform from an almost sacred beauty to abject terror in a single song. And hers, to be fair, tend to stretch more on the lengthier side—that Hayter’s compositions as Lingua Ignota take their time to resolve, to let the listener linger in the agony and fear for as long as they do, showcases just how difficult a thing it is that she does. She’s in large part a descendant of the primal scream opera of Diamanda Galás, with a closer connection to contemporary metal. But even when lending her voice to music such as the sludgy industrial grind of The Body or the manic powerviolence of Full of Hell, it’s her own contribution that leaves the most indelible impact. 

Jul 9 2019

Deconstruction of Depravity: An interview with Lingua Ignota // Treble

(via Treble)

Kristin Hayter is one of the most fascinating voices in contemporary music today, but most probably wouldn’t recognize her by her real name. She performs and records under the name Lingua Ignota, which is from the German mystic Hildegard of Bingen, meaning “unknown language.” And her work is both fascinating and mind-boggling; from drone to industrial, to doom, classical, and even some gospel-like elements, Hayter explores and combines a vast range of styles into intriguing compositions.