Lingua Ignota

Support: Midwife

00:00

Cancelled

Cancellation statement

»I am devastated that I must cancel my European tour due to intense aggravation of my pre-existing spinal injury. I knew something was off after I performed in Chicago, and the pain got worse over the week. My doctor has advised that flights and extensive travel are not possible for me until I am healed. Spine stuff scares the shit out of me but it is my hope that with rest and physical therapy I will be back to normal in a couple months, so I should be able to see you in London in October. I am so incredibly sorry to all the fans who will be disappointed, to my team who put so much time and energy into making this tour happen, and especially to Midwife who was taking time out of her schedule to join me.« – Lingua Ignota on 8 May 2023.

Original event text

Lingua Ignota and Midwife both appear in support of their newest albums created during lockdown confinements, in this double-bill event, co-presented by CTM Festival and Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz.

Kristin Hayter, the classically trained multi-instrumentalist, performance artist, and vocalist known as Lingua Ignota released her Sargent House debut, Sinner Get Ready on 6 August 2021. An unsettling portrait of devotion and betrayal, judgement and consequence, set in the derelict landscape of rural Pennsylvania, a neglected region deeply embedded with a particularly god fearing brand of Christianity where Hayter was living during the album's inception. 

With Sinner Get Ready Hayter continues to build on the mythology she has created with critically acclaimed albums Caligula and All Bitches Die but renegotiates and dismantles her own aesthetic language. She abandons any previous industrial grandeur and multi-genre approach, instead focusing on creating dissonance with traditional instruments of the Appalachian region. An intense and frightening religious inquiry, the album examines the duality of blind devotion. Hayter’s portrayal of god as a vengeful, violent presence is just as ruthless as her depiction of the dangerously pious. Subverting or leaning into the ecclesiastical implications of traditional Appalachian instruments such as the organ, animal-skin drum, or penny whistle, she concocts a frightening delusion and attempts to transcend the pains of the flesh. Sinner Get Ready was created with Hayter’s primary collaborator, producer, and engineer Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets in Rhode Island, with additional arrangements and performances from multi-instrumentalist and composer Ryan Seaton, and banjo-playing from J. Mamana.

Much of Hayter’s work has been centralised around abuse. A survivor of domestic abuse for much of her life, her music seeks to explore survivorhood through the vantage point of rage and despair in lieu of common approaches she views as »enforced patriarchal models of civilised femininity.« This past year she announced that she will retire her beloved Lingua Ignota moniker in 2023, however, citing, »It is not healthy for me to relive my worst experiences over and over« (Pitchfork). She will however continue creating, and expand into new musical directions. Her past works have received praise from Pitchfork, Noisey, and The Quietus among others. Her cover of the song »Jolene« was the inspiration behind designer Sébastien Meunier’s 2019 spring collection for Ann Demeulemeester.

Supporting the event is the project, Midwife, the moniker of multi-instrumentalist Madeline Johnston. As a self taught guitarist and recording engineer, with her project she explores dark subject matter in her anthemic, soft-gaze style that is self-described as »Heaven Metal,« or emotive music about devastation - catharsis.

Midwife’s third full length record, Luminol, was written and produced during quarantine. Luminol is a chemical used by forensic investigators to reveal trace amounts of blood left at a crime scene. The album navigates themes of incarceration, locus of control, clarity, self harm, confinement, agency, and truth-seeking, all erupting in a bioluminescent Rothko colour-field of blue. It features collaborations from Tucker Theodore, Angel Diaz (Vyva Melinkolya), Zachary Cole Smith, Ben Newman, and Colin Caulfield (DIIV), and Dan Barrett (Have A Nice Life).

Presented by CTM Festival and Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz