“I don’t eat, I don’t sleep, I let it consume me”.
Consumed by her neoclassical background, Kristin Hayter encroached into London with her turbulent ‘darkwave’ act Lingua Ignota after an elongated period of trepidation from the sold-out Hackney crowd.
Seemingly on a sonic scale above her contemporaries such as Anna Von Hausswolff and Diamanda Galás, Ignota recently explored through her 2nd LP, Caligula, the personal narratives of self-harm, sexual violence, and trauma, wrapped up in the conspicuous vacuum of a deleterious relationship. Pulling together enclaves of metal fans and classical fans, Lingua Ignota ignited this dimly-lit room with the sheer magnitude of her haunting presence and volcanic vocals.
After draping various transparent tarpaulin sheets over the series of installed lighting rigs, Hayter’s character at last emerged with her melancholic vocal delivery exuding anguished refrains of sadness within ‘Sorrow, Sorrow, Sorrow’ and ‘Do You Doubt Me Traitor’. Seamlessly stretching into a fairly simplistic spiel of piano-and-singer ballad, Ignota defied these common expected tropes with her ear-screeching screams and cries for redemption. These early signs were indicating that this would be far from an orthodox show.
“Will you lay your life down? No man can take it.”
The fierceness of this set’s inception only further cultivated itself as we channelled through her latest LP with such tracks as ‘Butcher of the World’ and ‘May Failure Be Your Noose’. As supposed from the titles, Ignota revelled in these violent tropes swirling amongst religiously reverberating organ chords. For the latter track, these words rang true as her neck was wrung with the extensive microphone cable intensifying this consuming crucible the audience found themselves in. Beyond this, however, Ignota’s soprano sfogato vocal range proved unequivocally remarkable - showcasing such heartfelt lighter notes contrasted against bassier wall-of-sounds excavated tonight.
The fatalistic themes played throughout this LP’s playback at last came to a moment of ultimate empowerment through one of the final tracks ‘If The Poison Won’t Take You My Dogs Will’. With Hayter’s personal experience of sexual and psychological abuse from previous relationships, these overriding feelings were channelled against such an endemic issue of today in a siege against society's domineering patriarchy - confiding in her female friend “Will you lay your life down? No man can take it.” Concluding in a state pleading for love and appraisal, Ignota convincingly bowed out this evening with the showcase of a remarkable arc of events, emotions, and entrenched systems.
Nevertheless, this impressive arc to tonight’s proceedings wasn't entirely devoid of various pitfalls: the set’s awkward culmination of blaring distortions minutes after Ignota departed, to the lack of other musicians' sounds on stage - the potential for this intense hour-long crucible could have been truly capitalised upon. Whilst Ignota’s shortcomings were visibly notable, what remained impressive was the coming together of fans from various music scenes into one room - all to see the enigmatic, unbridled singer Lingua Ignota entirely exhaust her body and mind in the retelling of her latest, highly-acclaimed burgeoning LP, Caligula.
7/10
Lingua Ignota's latest LP, Caligula, is out now and can be found here.
All photos are courtesy of @chiaroscuroeye, whose work can be found here.
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