Lingua Ignota

Classically trained vocalist Kristin Hayter channels her solo work through Lingua Ignota, a project that confronts violence, misogyny, and revenge without restraint. Hayter’s voice, often likened to Diamanda Galás, moves from delicate soprano to harsh shrieking, while her albums—2019’s Caligula and 2021’s Sinner Get Ready—fuse opera, power electronics, avant-metal, and folk into ambitious, bracing statements.

The Rhode Island-based artist issued her earliest recordings, Let the Evil of His Own Lips Cover Him and All Bitches Die, independently in 2017. Profound Lore released a reworked edition of All Bitches Die in 2018, the same year Hayter appeared on I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer. by the Body, her frequent collaborators and tourmates. She also lent her voice to Limbs Bin’s One Happy World and Full of Hell’s 2019 full-length Weeping Choir, and shared a split LP with noise artist the Rita (Sam McKinlay).

Caligula arrived in 2019 with input from many prior associates plus vocalist Mike Berdan (Uniform) and percussionist Ted Byrnes (Wood & Metal). After forming the side project Sightless Pit with Full of Hell’s Dylan Walker and the Body’s Lee Buford, she delivered her fourth album, Sinner Get Ready, in 2021.