2023 - USA
Hymns, Southern Gospel, Singer-Songwriter, Appalachian Folk Music, Tape Music
« Take hold of my gentle axe and split him open
Gather up my quiet hammer and nail him down
Use any of your heavenly means, your golden scythe, your holy sword
Your fiery arrows studded with stars
I don’t give a fuck, just kill him
You have to, I’m not asking »
These were the words Kristin Hayter addressed to God as Lingua Ignota on her 2021 masterpiece Sinner Get Ready. Back then, she was wielding the imagery of God’s power as a tool for revenge. That’s what she was seeking with music, an otherworldly and overwhelming strength to destroy all her inner traumas that had to do with abusive violent men. That lasted around five years. Five years where we witnessed the rising rebirth of an artist without precedent. Fusing post-industrial with neoclassical darkwave and religious imagery, Lingua Ignota was a monicker under which Kristin Hayter could transcend her anger. But how far do you go like that ? Kristin Hayter answered this question this year when she announced her retiring as Lingua Ignota. So how far do you go ? Until your body and mind get too tired and damaged to revive your traumas over and over. On her ascending mission towards inner healing, she found herself a title, Reverend, she find herself a house, Perpetual Flame Ministries, she found a new leitmotiv, salvation.
With Saved!, Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter reached an awakening, the « apocalyptic revelation on the complex, sometimes ugly, always nonlinear process of healing ». And to explore that new way, she entered a whole new world to surround her with myths, chants, books and legacies: the Pentecostal-Holiness Movement. Singing school teacher Ananias Davisson, American preacher Robert Lowry, Christian evangelist Thomas Andrew Dorsey, gospel blues singer Blind Willie Johnson, between the early 19th century and 20th century, hymns were written and composed by Christians as worshipping chants for the church. This is the first part of Saved! ’s identity. Kristin Hayter is making old hymns her own, adding a few of her original compositions in the mix to tell a more personal story with I’m Getting Out While I Can, All of My Friends Are Going to Hell and I Will Be With You Always. And while talking about the mix, this is tape music. As the opening song starts playing, we’re immediately caught off-guard by the artificially poor quality of the recording. This was achieved so the album would feel like a timeless experience, an old secret found somewhere buried deep down in the ground, something dangerous that shouldn’t have been discovered. Fear is one of the feelings you’re experiencing when listening to Lingua Ignota. And even without her anger, fear is still here when we’re going through a work of healing or, in other words, of detoxification.
Kristin Hayter’s music has always been uncomfortable to seat with. It can be triggering as much as liberating. And in all these songs, there’s one motive that comes back and forth, like a reminder that healing isn’t just a journey for the mind, but also for the body. Hayter’s voice has always been her most powerful instrument, emotionally surpassing every other instrument backing her. And besides the worship lyrics of Saved! , we also hear the Reverend speak in tongues, that’s what we call « glossolalia ». Coming from the Greek, glossolalia is the phenomenon of speaking in an unknown language. In Pentecostal churches especially, glossolalia can be used as a part of personal prayers called « praying in the spirit ». On four songs, we hear Kristin Hayter entering a trance, spitting unrecognizable sounds from her mouth. Unknown language. We’re coming full circle. Lingua Ignota also means « unknown language », which leads us to two interpretations. Hayter’s glossolalia could be a way for her to exorcise her past self, as well as a mean for her to communicate with God in a way that transcends language. Not to speak with her mind, but with her body. And this is why Saved! is such a tough listen. Her songs as Lingua Ignota could sound cathartic to us. But here we’re listening to someone trying to reach catharsis. This is why, on the final song How Can I Keep From Singing, the final minutes are covered by Hayter’s glossolalia, as she intones and cries and shouts and coughs until her body doesn’t respond anymore. Exhaustion. This is healing, letting go of a self-destructive drug that shaped your existence, letting the withdrawal symptoms intensify until you finally picture tiny bits of light that will help you find your way back home.
“Farewell to everyone that I know / Judgement is coming, I'm ready to go
I won't stick around to see where you all stand
Just get out, get out, get out while you can”
On the opening song I’m Getting Out While I Can, and others such as Idumea where Hayter asks « And am I born to die? To lay this body down! / And must my trembling spirit fly into a world unknown ? » and The Poor Wayfaring Stranger : « There is no sickness, toil, or danger / In that bright world to which I go ». Saved! seems to be playing with the idea of death. But this ending has several faces. It might refer to her own decay but also to the death of her past self, traumas and healing process. And this journey is chronicled on the album’s centerpiece, I Will Be With You Always. If the first verse is about Kristin Hayter finally setting herself free, the rapidly faces doubts as she encounters many demons laying in her head. « I know your name, take your teeth out of me / Return my body to me, release me, release me ». And as her voice ascends like an opera singer, the song takes us inside Hayter’s darkest hours. « My tears soaked my bed / The blood of many wounds soaked my bed / The sweat of many fears soaked my bed / And I begged / Release me, release me ». And as she performs an exorcism on her own person, she reaches for God’s help in her agony. There, God tells her she’s always been free, that her fears were not defining her because she’s « as perfect as a single blade of grass ».
And even if the song could end on that note, one final verse spreads the exorcism beyond the album. « And so, Sinner Friend, lay your burdens down / The night is not yours alone to carry / Take my hand, for in the dark I see you / I will always be with you, I will be with you always ». Now, Kristin Hayter is passing that knowledge to us. Healing is a communal bond. And through God’s love she found the strength to heal herself, only to turn religious love into music, so that music speaks to our minds, and bodies. In between the most massive songs, Saved! is sprinkled with more straightforward hymns, There Is Power in the Blood, Precious Lord Take My Hand and Nothing But the Blood of Jesus. It gives a feeling that this album has been recorded somewhere in a wooden cabin lost in the woods, near a river. A retreat, a renunciation. In order to welcome God’s light, Kristin Hayter had to hide for months inside a temple papered with Pentecostal crosses, filled with holy water and lit by a gentle fire. « My life flows on in endless song / Above Earth’s lamentations / I catch the sweet though far-off hymn / That hails a new creation ». It becomes even more impressive to hear how well the final song, How Can I Keep From Singing sounds so intimately linked with Kristin Hayter despite being a cover. And as we enter this temple, sitting by the fire, even if God is invisible to us, even if His name doesn’t mean anything to us, it’s Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter’s light that is shining upon our wounds.
Gather up my quiet hammer and nail him down
Use any of your heavenly means, your golden scythe, your holy sword
Your fiery arrows studded with stars
I don’t give a fuck, just kill him
You have to, I’m not asking »
These were the words Kristin Hayter addressed to God as Lingua Ignota on her 2021 masterpiece Sinner Get Ready. Back then, she was wielding the imagery of God’s power as a tool for revenge. That’s what she was seeking with music, an otherworldly and overwhelming strength to destroy all her inner traumas that had to do with abusive violent men. That lasted around five years. Five years where we witnessed the rising rebirth of an artist without precedent. Fusing post-industrial with neoclassical darkwave and religious imagery, Lingua Ignota was a monicker under which Kristin Hayter could transcend her anger. But how far do you go like that ? Kristin Hayter answered this question this year when she announced her retiring as Lingua Ignota. So how far do you go ? Until your body and mind get too tired and damaged to revive your traumas over and over. On her ascending mission towards inner healing, she found herself a title, Reverend, she find herself a house, Perpetual Flame Ministries, she found a new leitmotiv, salvation.
With Saved!, Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter reached an awakening, the « apocalyptic revelation on the complex, sometimes ugly, always nonlinear process of healing ». And to explore that new way, she entered a whole new world to surround her with myths, chants, books and legacies: the Pentecostal-Holiness Movement. Singing school teacher Ananias Davisson, American preacher Robert Lowry, Christian evangelist Thomas Andrew Dorsey, gospel blues singer Blind Willie Johnson, between the early 19th century and 20th century, hymns were written and composed by Christians as worshipping chants for the church. This is the first part of Saved! ’s identity. Kristin Hayter is making old hymns her own, adding a few of her original compositions in the mix to tell a more personal story with I’m Getting Out While I Can, All of My Friends Are Going to Hell and I Will Be With You Always. And while talking about the mix, this is tape music. As the opening song starts playing, we’re immediately caught off-guard by the artificially poor quality of the recording. This was achieved so the album would feel like a timeless experience, an old secret found somewhere buried deep down in the ground, something dangerous that shouldn’t have been discovered. Fear is one of the feelings you’re experiencing when listening to Lingua Ignota. And even without her anger, fear is still here when we’re going through a work of healing or, in other words, of detoxification.
Kristin Hayter’s music has always been uncomfortable to seat with. It can be triggering as much as liberating. And in all these songs, there’s one motive that comes back and forth, like a reminder that healing isn’t just a journey for the mind, but also for the body. Hayter’s voice has always been her most powerful instrument, emotionally surpassing every other instrument backing her. And besides the worship lyrics of Saved! , we also hear the Reverend speak in tongues, that’s what we call « glossolalia ». Coming from the Greek, glossolalia is the phenomenon of speaking in an unknown language. In Pentecostal churches especially, glossolalia can be used as a part of personal prayers called « praying in the spirit ». On four songs, we hear Kristin Hayter entering a trance, spitting unrecognizable sounds from her mouth. Unknown language. We’re coming full circle. Lingua Ignota also means « unknown language », which leads us to two interpretations. Hayter’s glossolalia could be a way for her to exorcise her past self, as well as a mean for her to communicate with God in a way that transcends language. Not to speak with her mind, but with her body. And this is why Saved! is such a tough listen. Her songs as Lingua Ignota could sound cathartic to us. But here we’re listening to someone trying to reach catharsis. This is why, on the final song How Can I Keep From Singing, the final minutes are covered by Hayter’s glossolalia, as she intones and cries and shouts and coughs until her body doesn’t respond anymore. Exhaustion. This is healing, letting go of a self-destructive drug that shaped your existence, letting the withdrawal symptoms intensify until you finally picture tiny bits of light that will help you find your way back home.
“Farewell to everyone that I know / Judgement is coming, I'm ready to go
I won't stick around to see where you all stand
Just get out, get out, get out while you can”
On the opening song I’m Getting Out While I Can, and others such as Idumea where Hayter asks « And am I born to die? To lay this body down! / And must my trembling spirit fly into a world unknown ? » and The Poor Wayfaring Stranger : « There is no sickness, toil, or danger / In that bright world to which I go ». Saved! seems to be playing with the idea of death. But this ending has several faces. It might refer to her own decay but also to the death of her past self, traumas and healing process. And this journey is chronicled on the album’s centerpiece, I Will Be With You Always. If the first verse is about Kristin Hayter finally setting herself free, the rapidly faces doubts as she encounters many demons laying in her head. « I know your name, take your teeth out of me / Return my body to me, release me, release me ». And as her voice ascends like an opera singer, the song takes us inside Hayter’s darkest hours. « My tears soaked my bed / The blood of many wounds soaked my bed / The sweat of many fears soaked my bed / And I begged / Release me, release me ». And as she performs an exorcism on her own person, she reaches for God’s help in her agony. There, God tells her she’s always been free, that her fears were not defining her because she’s « as perfect as a single blade of grass ».
And even if the song could end on that note, one final verse spreads the exorcism beyond the album. « And so, Sinner Friend, lay your burdens down / The night is not yours alone to carry / Take my hand, for in the dark I see you / I will always be with you, I will be with you always ». Now, Kristin Hayter is passing that knowledge to us. Healing is a communal bond. And through God’s love she found the strength to heal herself, only to turn religious love into music, so that music speaks to our minds, and bodies. In between the most massive songs, Saved! is sprinkled with more straightforward hymns, There Is Power in the Blood, Precious Lord Take My Hand and Nothing But the Blood of Jesus. It gives a feeling that this album has been recorded somewhere in a wooden cabin lost in the woods, near a river. A retreat, a renunciation. In order to welcome God’s light, Kristin Hayter had to hide for months inside a temple papered with Pentecostal crosses, filled with holy water and lit by a gentle fire. « My life flows on in endless song / Above Earth’s lamentations / I catch the sweet though far-off hymn / That hails a new creation ». It becomes even more impressive to hear how well the final song, How Can I Keep From Singing sounds so intimately linked with Kristin Hayter despite being a cover. And as we enter this temple, sitting by the fire, even if God is invisible to us, even if His name doesn’t mean anything to us, it’s Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter’s light that is shining upon our wounds.