A sombre, affecting lament that centres on a lyrical motif underscoring her upcoming album SINNER GET READY, Lingua Ignota aka Kristin Hayter has shared her latest single ‘PERPETUAL FLAME OF CENTRALIA’. Accompanied by an elegant set of visuals that show the multi-instrumentalist wearing exquisite couture pieces created by artist & Sargent House label mate Ashley Rose, the track & video focus on the iconography of the blood of Jesus and how it can “wash and cleanse every stain,” as disgraced American Evangelist TV Preacher Jimmy Swaggart once tearfully confessed.
Shot by Alena Kostromina, Ashley Rose’s beautiful bespoke costumes in the footage serve to heighten the majestic, yet morbid nature of Hayter’s voice and vision. “Working collaboratively with Alena has been a dream,” Hayter explains. “I have been able to explore the ideas of my record with wearable art. I chose to wear her mask on the cover of SINNER GET READY because it held the sharp dichotomy of my music; it was chaste and erotic, exquisite and grotesque. For the ‘PERPETUAL FLAME OF CENTRALIA’ video, the expressive capacity of her garments are meditated upon in juxtaposition to the stark, desolate quality of my song. It is the material vs. the immaterial, and the result is languid and dreamy and wonderfully claustrophobic.”
With her new record, Lingua Ignota has made a distinct departure from the furious, visceral sounds of previous offering CALIGULA, but her sensational vocals are still the lifeblood of the album. On ‘PERPETUAL FLAME OF CENTRALIA’, they tentatively unravel over sparse, melancholy keys so that even without a full understanding of the track’s biblical context, Hayter’s song still provides a profound emotional release.
Watch the video for ‘PERPETUAL FLAME OF CENTRALIA’ below.
Pre-order SINNER GET READY here (released on 6th August via Sargent House)
Follow Lingua Ignota on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook
Photo Credit: Lisa Birds
Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut
Get In Her Ears 
Published by