Music / Lingua Ignota

PENNSYLVANIA FURNACE

"I don’t get to enact violence or murder my abusers; I get to make music instead, and this has been fantastic revenge. If everything ends tomorrow, I already won."

— Lingua Ignota for the Guardian

Kristin Hayter (born June 17, 1986) is an American musician from southern California.

Classically trained as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, Hayter began her professional music career in 2017 under the name Lingua Ignota (Latin for "unknown language"). Through the project, she solidified a signature sound that combines elements of classical music, opera, experimental music, and various heavy metal subgenres. Lingua Ignota's lyrics frequently explore themes of domestic abuse and retaliatory violence through heavy Roman Catholic symbolism, and Hayter has described the songs as "survivor anthems". These themes often manifest in extreme imagery and raw explorations of the internal rage and despair of survivorhood, and were drawn from Hayter's reported experiences in multiple abusive relationships.

She has collaborated with and been featured by a variety of other artists, most notably sludge metal band The Body.

In November 2022, Hayter announced that she would be retiring the Lingua Ignota project after a series of 2023 performances, citing the unhealthiness of reliving her trauma and a want to prioritize her emotional well-being. In the announcement, she also stated that she has plans to continue making music in other ventures. In August 2023, she announced her first new album under a new name and style: SAVED! as Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter. The album was released around two months later on October 20.

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Discography:

As Lingua Ignota:

• Let the Evil of His Own Lips Cover Him (2017)
• All Bitches Die (2017)
• Caligula (2019)
• Commissioned (EP, split with The Rita) (2019)
• Agnus Dei (EP) (2021)
• Sinner Get Ready (2021)
• Epistolary Grieving For Jimmy Swaggart (EP) (2021)

As Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter:

• SAVED! (2023)
• SAVED! The Index (2024)^note B-sides record, Bandcamp exclusive

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Holy Is the Name of My Ruthless Tropes:

• Affectionate Nickname: Fans call her "Lingy."
• A God Am I: "The Order of Spiritual Virgins."
  I am relentless, I am incessant, I am the ocean
  And all who dare look upon me
  Swear eternal devotion
• Album Intro Track: "Faithful Servant Friend of Christ" serves as this, with Hayter describing it as both an overture and a "warning."
• Album Title Drop:
  • Let The Evil Of His Own Lips Cover Him on "That He May Not Rise Again."
  Let the evil of his own lips cover him
  May burning coals fall upon him
  Let him be cast into deep pits that he may not rise again
  • All Bitches Die on "All Bitches Die (All Bitches Die Here)."
  The final words I ever heard, they shook the burning sky
  Bitches get what coming to you, all bitches die
  • Sinner Get Ready on "Many Hands."
  Sinner, you better get ready
  Sinner, you better get ready, hallelujah
• The Alleged House: Imagery of this trope appears in Epistolary Grieving for Jimmy Swaggart, in which Hayter compares herself to a "bad house" as a metaphor for abandonment and the injuries/surgeries she went through after being sexually abused.
  You will be left behind. To be just another bad fucking clapboard house, leaning, bones knocked out, hole in every wall, paint peeling until you collapse. Or are razed.
• Arc Words: "I am covered in Jesus's blood" (and variants of the phrase) appears many times across Sinner Get Ready. This continues onto Saved!, which she covers many hymns that reference the blood of Christ.
• Book Ends: Caligula's closer, "I Am The Beast," ends with the strings from "Faithful Servant Friend of Christ," making the album a loop.
• Break Up Song: In an unorthodox way, "Man Is Like a Spring Flower" may count as this. While abstract, the lyrics refer to "the heart of man," (the heart of her abuser, and all other men she has tried to love) as "impossible to hold," and later, "one is not enough, no love is enough," which could allude to infidelity. It ultimately concludes that her attempts to make her unfaithful, abusive partner love her have all been in vain, and that she is better off alone, leading to the Despair Event Horizon on the final track of the album.
• B-Side: Saved! The Index is a compilation of songs that didn't make the album. Also includes the thirteen minute recording of Hayter speaking in tongues that was used several times on the album, if you want to listen to that.
• Caps Lock: The song titles of her albums Caligula and Sinner Get Ready are styled in all uppercase.
• Careful with That Axe: Screams frequently.
• Concept Album: Saved! brings in a unique concept; the album's cover art is based on real albums of evangelist praise music, and the music was recorded on tape and tampered with to make it sound like an actual obscure Christian album from the 60s that's been collecting dust in an attic somewhere, its sound quality weathered by time.
• Corrupt Church: Invoked with the real life example of Jimmy Swaggart on Sinner Get Ready.
• Costume Porn: The music video for "Perpetual Flame of Centralia," which features Hayter in several ornate gowns designed by Ashley Rose Couture.
• Cover Version:
  • Did covers of "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak, "Sexless//No Sex" by Iron Lung, "Jolene" by Dolly Parton, "Kim" by Eminem, and "Katie Cruel," a traditional folk song.
  • Most of Saved! is comprised of covers of Christian hymns.
• Creepy Souvenir: On "Woe to All (On the Day of My Wrath)":
  The teeth of seven thousand men
  Adorn my silver crown
• Crisis of Faith: Hayter describes Sinner Get Ready as a record about searching for God and finding nothing. In her interview with Anthony Fantano, she said she had lost all faith in a higher power by the time she finished making it.
• Despair Event Horizon: In "The Solitary Brethren of Ephrata," the narrator gives up on finding revenge/peace and resigns to be alone for the rest of their life.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The description of God's punishment unto sinners on "Many Hands."
  Unto your pale, pale body I will put many hands
  And rough, rough fingers for every hole you have
• Domestic Abuse: Much of her work centers around and is based on this; it is also a case of Write What You Know, as she has been in various abusive relationships, most notably with Alexis Marshall as noted on a Twitter post from December 2021.
• Dressed Like a Dominatrix: The mask Hayter wears on the cover of Sinner Get Ready was meant to evoke a gimp mask.
• Drone of Dread: Sinner Get Ready opens with one of these.
• Epic Rocking: While most of Ignota's songs clock in around five minutes, a good number exceed six. Her album All Bitches Die opens with a track lasting fifteen.
• Fading into the Next Song:
  • "Faithful Servant Friend of Christ" into "Do You Doubt Me Traitor?", "Butcher of the World" into "May Failure Be Your Noose", "If Poison Won't Take You My Dogs Will" hard-cuts into "Day of Tears and Mourning", and "Fucking Deathdealer" into "I Am the Beast" on Caligula.
  • "I Who Bend the Tall Grasses" into "Many Hands", "Repent Now Confess Now" into "The Sacred Linament of Judgment", and "Man is Like a Spring Flower" hard-cutting into the sample that opens "The Solitrary Brethren of Ephrata" on Sinner Get Ready.
  • "Idumea" into "I Will Be With You Always" on Saved!.
• Flowers of Romance: Subverted in the artwork/imagery of Caligula; in an interview, Hayter said that flowers were often given to her as an Apology Gift from her abusers, so she came to associate them with cruelty and violence.
• Genre Mashup: Her music is difficult to put into a single category, containing elements of neo-classical darkwave, black metal, death industrial, opera, avant-garde folk, harsh noise, and classical. Two short interludes on Saved! even veer into country music.
• God Is Evil: Sinner Get Ready uses fundamentalist devotion to God as a metaphor for an abusive relationship.
  The Lord spat and held me by my neck
  "I wish things could be different," he wept
• Gratuitous Latin: Hand in hand with the Catholic imagery, she often sings in Latin.
• Hell Is That Noise: Many of her earlier songs feature cacophonous noise and screaming that certainly sound like they came straight from hell.
• I Die Free: Suicide as a means of finding freedom from abuse is a common theme in her music, especially on Caligula.
• Idiosyncratic Cover Art: All of her main studio albums as Lingua Ignota feature a similar shot of her facing forward from the shoulders up.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Expressed directly a few times on Caligula.
  All I want is boundless love
  All I know is violence
• Interrupted by the End: All over Saved!—many of the songs cut to the next one before she can get the last word in.
  There is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the—*LOUD PIANO CHORD*
• Jump Scare: The sound of the lightbulb breaking on "Sorrow! Sorrow! Sorrow!"
• Last Note Nightmare:
  • The final few seconds of "Man Is Like a Spring Flower," which crescendos into cacophonous noise.
  • Inverted on "All Of My Friends Are Going To Hell," which starts with startling beep sound.
  • "I'm Getting Out While I Can" cuts off prematurely to a frightening recording of Hayter speaking in tongues.
• Limited Lyrics Song: Has a few of these, such as "Disease of Men" and "Spite Alone Holds Me Aloft."
• Lighter and Softer: While Sinner Get Ready is still quite intense and harrowing, it sheds the industrial metal influence of her previous records, and there's less screaming.
• Longest Song Goes First: "Woe to All" and "The Order of Spiritual Virgins" are the longest songs on their respective records, and also the openers.
• Longest Song Goes Last: "How Can I Keep From Singing" is eight minutes long, and closes out Saved!
• Lonely Piano Piece: "The Chosen One," "Holy Is the Name," "Fragrant is My Many Flower'd Crown," and "The Perpetual Flame of Centralia."
• Lovecraft Country: Sinner Get Ready took inspiration from the "creepiness" of rural Pennsylvania.
• Meaningful Name: Lingua Ignota, latin for unknown language, was the name of the secret language used and possibly invented by the twelfth-century spiritual leader Hildegard of Bingen. Ignota has stated that she uses her performances to allow a greater power to speak through her, in much the same way Hildegard claimed to act as a conduit, and her work frequently deals with the idea of giving voice to experiences for which no adequate language exists.
• Meaningful Rename: The shift from Lingua Ignota to Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter. Not only is it her real name, it represents a new departure in sound and subject matter from her previous work.
• Metal Scream: Contrasts this with her beautiful, more operatic-style singing.
• Mood Whiplash: In her tour diary, "Brick House" by funk band The Commodores opens the documentary, then is immediately cut off by "Pennsylvania Furnace."
• Motor Mouth: After the drop and at the end of "O Ruthless Great Divine Director" Hayter recites the lyrics to the verses as fast as possible. It's even slightly sped up.
• Murder Ballad: All Bitches Die is made up entirely of these.
• New Sound Album:
  • Sinner Get Ready leaves behind most of the industrial and electronic elements of her first records and goes for a more eerie, avant-folk sound.
  • Saved! is a considerable departure from the sounds of Lingua Ignota, comprised of mostly prepared piano and voice as well as intentionally shoddy sound quality.
• Non-Appearing Title: The only overt mention to the actual Caligula on Caligula is through a famous quote of his, "Let them hate me, as long as they fear me."
• One-Woman Wail: "That He May Not Rise Again" becomes a very intense and heartbreaking version of this.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Much of her music explores retaliatory violence of victims against their abusers, either real or fantasized. The background imagery for her performance-based MFA thesis featured serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who shot johns that had raped her, and her album All Bitches Die was inspired by reading Angela Browne's When Battered Women Kill. Ignota has also implied that she considers expressing these ideas with Christian imagery in the medium of Heavy Metal a sort of revenge against those traditions, both of which have long-standing patterns of justifying or glamorizing misogynistic violence.
  All my rapists lay beside me
  All my rapists, cold and gray
• Prayer of Malice: The narrator on "I Who Bend The Tall Grasses" begs God for Him to kill her abusive partner.
• Precision F-Strike: Employed multiple times.
  • "Everyone I know is a fucking cop..."
  • "I'm the fucking deathdealer!"
  • "Throw your body in the fucking river..."
  • "I DON'T GIVE A FUCK! JUST KILL HIM! I'M NOT ASKING!"
• Sampling: Usually makes use of samples of people talking.
  • "Disease of Men" and "Holy Is the Name (Of My Ruthless Axe)" samples serial killer Aileen Wuornos.
  • The original version of "For I Am the Light" samples "All Things Bright and Beautiful," an Anglican hymn.
  • "Sorrow! Sorrow! Sorrow!" samples Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich angrily eating a sandwich from the documentary ''Some Kind of Monster.''
  • "The Order of Spiritual Virgins" samples an episode of the reality TV show Alone, in which a man talks about how much he loves dead silence.
  • "The Sacred Linament of Judgment" samples Jimmy Swaggart's infamous "I have sinned" speech.
  • "Man Is Like a Spring Flower" samples an interview with Rosemary Garcia, the sex worker that Swaggart was caught with.
  • "The Solitary Brethren of Ephrata" samples a CNN reporter interviewing a churchgoer, who proclaims she is "covered in Jesus's blood."
• Rearrange the Song: Most of the songs on Saved! as well as the entirety of The Index are covers of Christian hymns (and some African-American spirituals), however Hayter usually uses a different musical composition than the original. Compare Blind Willie Johnson's "I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole" and Hayter's rendition.
• Scare Chord: "The Order of Spiritual Virgins" uses this multiple times.
• Self-Backing Vocalist: Many songs feature layers upon layers of her own vocal harmonies, making her a one-woman choir.
• Sensory Abuse: Loves to play with this, aurally. When listening to any Lingua Ignota album, be prepared for the classical instrumentation to be interjected with a Jump Scare, Scare Chord, Metal Scream, or a wall of noise.
• Shout-Out:
  • References "Sexless//No Sex" by Iron Lung in "The Chosen One." She also made a full Cover Version of the same song on Agnus Dei.
  • The title track on All Bitches Die takes the lyrics from the murder ballad "Knoxville Girl" by the Louvin Brothers, changing the perspective from the murderer to the victim.
  • In her tour diary video, Hayter excitedly begins watching The Muppet Christmas Carol.
• Sinister Scraping Sound: The rolling lightbulb featured throughout Caligula.
• Singing Voice Dissonance: Hayter's speaking voice is calm and reserved, but she screams, belts, and strains her voice on her records.
• Song of Prayer: "That He May Not Rise Again," in which she desperately begs God to protect her from a violent partner.
• Song Parody: "Above Us Only Sky," parodies the infamous "Imagine" celebrity cover by taking the audio and turning it into a wall of noise.
• Speaking Simlish: Glossolalia is present all over Saved, especially the final song.
• Spoken Word in Music: "Epistolary Grieving For Jimmy Swaggart," an audiovisual project of spoken-word "letters" she wrote to evangelical preacher Jimmy Swaggart.
• Stock Footage: The videos for Let The Evil Of His Own Lips Cover Him are all video collages of publicly available footage of dancers, baptisms, a burning building, and Aileen Wuornos.
• Surprisingly Gentle Song: "The Solitary Brethren of Ephrata," a slow, melancholic piano/horn ballad.
• Tattoo as Character Type: The enormous tattoo she bears on the front cover of Caligula is not a temporary one or a skillful photoshop - she permanently etched the album's name onto her chest.
• The Cover Changes the Meaning: Her cover of "Kim" by Eminem takes on a dark irony when sung by Hayter.
• Title Track: "All Bitches Die" and "Agnus Dei."
• Trademark Favorite Food: Cheez-Its.
• Updated Re-release: The reissue of All Bitches Die, which adds on the track "God Gave Me No Name," changes some of the song lengths, and removes the sample from "For I Am the Light."
• Wall of Text: * Lingua Ignota's Trust No One Burn Everything Kill Yourself, a thesis project consisting of a 10,000 page manuscript of violently misogynistic A.I.-generated text pulled from sources such as online forums and pornogrind lyrics. The point of the project, essentially, is to highlight how mind-numbing and meaningless misogynistic rhetoric becomes when you're exposed to it for too long by turning it all into 10,000 pages of incomprehensible nonsense. The manuscript itself has never been officially released, but you can see bits of it in the video for "That He May Not Rise Again."

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REMEMBER: AS YOU ARE WHEN THE END COMES SO WILL YOU BE WHEN YOU MUST FACE HIM