CALIGULA

Artist: Lingua Ignota
Album: CALIGULA
Release Date: July 19, 2019
Label: Profound Lore
Formats: Vinyl / CD / Digital / Stream

CALIGULA

LINGUA IGNOTA

“CALIGULA”, the new album from LINGUA IGNOTA set for release on July 19th on CD/2xLP/Digital through Profound Lore Records, takes the vision of Kristin Hayter’s vessel to a new level of grandeur, her purging and vengeful audial vision going beyond anything preceding it and reaching a new unparalleled sonic plane within her oeuvre.

Succeeding her
“CALIGULA”, the new album from LINGUA IGNOTA set for release on July 19th on CD/2xLP/Digital through Profound Lore Records, takes the vision of Kristin Hayter’s vessel to a new level of grandeur, her purging and vengeful audial vision going beyond anything preceding it and reaching a new unparalleled sonic plane within her oeuvre.

Succeeding her self-released 2017 “All Bitches Die” opus (re-released by Profound Lore Records in 2018), “CALIGULA” sees Hayter design her most ambitious work to date, displaying the full force of her talent as a vocalist, composer, and storyteller. Vast in scope and multivalent in its influences, with delivery nothing short of demonic, “CALIGULA” is an outsider’s opera; magnificent, hideous, and raw. Eschewing and disavowing genre altogether, Hayter builds her own world. Here she fully embodies the moniker Lingua Ignota, from the German mystic Hildegard of Bingen, meaning “unknown language” — this music has no home, any precedent or comparison could only be uneasily given, and there is nothing else like it in our contemporary realm.

LINGUA IGNOTA has always taken a radical, unflinching approach to themes of violence and vengeance, and “CALIGULA” builds on the transformation of the survivor at the core of this narrative. “CALIGULA” embraces the darkness that closes in, sharpens itself with the cruelty it has been subjected to, betrays as it has been betrayed. It is wrath unleashed, scathing, a caustic blood-letting: “Let them hate me so long as they fear me,” Hayter snarls in a voice that ricochets from chilling raw power to agonizing vulnerability. Whilst “CALIGULA” is unapologetically personal and critically self-aware, there are broader themes explored; the decadence, corruption, depravity and senseless violence of emperor Caligula is well documented and yet still permeates today. Brimming with references and sly jabs, Hayter’s sardonic commentary on abuse of power and invalidation is deftly woven.

Working closely with Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Hayter strips away much of the industrial and electronic elements of her previous work, approaching instead the corporeal intensity and intimate menace of her notorious live performances, achieved with unconventional recording techniques and sound sources, as well as a full arsenal of live instrumentation and collaborators including harsh noise master Sam McKinlay (THE RITA), visceral drummer Lee Buford (The Body) and frenetic percussionist Ted Byrnes (Cackle Car, Wood & Metal), with guest vocals from Dylan Walker (Full of Hell), Mike Berdan (Uniform), and Noraa Kaplan (Visibilities). “CALIGULA” is a massive work, a multi-layered epic that gives voice and space to that which has been silenced and cut out.
Read more…
0:00/???
  1. 1
    0:00/9:34
  2. 2
    0:00/6:33

BIO

“CALIGULA”, the new album from LINGUA IGNOTA set for release on July 19th on CD/2xLP/Digital through Profound Lore Records, takes the vision of Kristin Hayter’s vessel to a new level of grandeur, her purging and vengeful audial vision going beyond and reaching a new unparalleled sonic plane within her oeuvre. 

Succeeding her “All Bitches Die” LP, “CALIGULA” sees Hayter design her most ambitious work yet and is a display of the full force of Hayter’s creativity; the deep intensity of her experience is the foundation on which “CALIGULA” is built.  Taking her blueprint which amalgamates sounds culled from noise/experimental, death industrial, and classical/chamber music/opera, “CALIGULA” is a work of magnificence and solemnity, a dramatic compositional opus jarring and beautiful in equal measure.  Relentless intensity with soaring dramatic arcs, at times unhinged and juxtaposed with soulful melancholy by marrying operatic vocals with haunting piano, Hayter utilises her voice as an instrument to communicate pain, raw vulnerability and power.  Charted in agonisingly intimate detail, “CALIGULA” is a document of things left previously unsaid that necessitated verbalising; a caustic blood letting. 

LINGUA IGNOTA has always taken a radical, unflinching approach to themes of violence and vengeance in ways that are moving, brutal, and harrowing.  Whilst “CALIGULA” is unapologetically personal, there are broader themes explored; the decadence, corruption, depravity and senseless violence of emperor Caligula is well documented and yet still permeates today. As a metaphor for the soporose abuse of influence that is visible in the loftiest corridors of power, right down to the systematic societal invalidation of abuse survivors. 

Recorded and mixed by Seth Manchester at Machines with Magnets Studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island and mastered by Heba Kadry, “CALIGULA” sees Hayter utilising a full arsenal of live instrumentation and musique concrete-style recording to capture a sense of space and ‘human-ness’ on the tracks. Strings are brought to life by a cellist and violinist, with additional noise/texture added by Sam McKinlay (The Rita), percussion by Lee Buford (The Body) and Ted Byrnes, with guest vocals courtesy of Dylan Walker (Full of Hell), Mike Berdan (Uniform) and Noraa Kaplan (Visibilities).