Los Angeles — Album bones can take numerous forms. They may be narrative, genre, or cinematic soundtracks. Due to her interest in religion and education in art, literature, and linguistics, Kristin Hayter was able to conduct an anthropological experiment with her latest album.
The concept album “Saved!” by Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter depicts a dramatized conversion to Pentecostalism. “When people ask, ‘What is it?’ Before her second of two recent concerts at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, she remarks, "I don't know what to say" about her CD. “It should sound like found sound, field recordings, that kind of thing.”
Hayter, who previously recorded as Lingua Ignota, used the album to contemplate how people make stories about their perceived reality without seeking a conversion or historical investigation. While making it, she thought about documentary storytelling and “what is edited out and what we choose to leave in.”
Saved!” features Christian hymns like “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus” and “How Can I Keep from Singing” and original, sometimes subversive songs like “All of My Friends Are Going to Hell.” Hayter's followers range from fervent Christians—including a West Virginia snake handler who invited her—to atheists.
I was expecting more outrage,” she remarked. But I think there's enough uncertainty, and it's intentional—I'm not asking a specific response. What you hear depends on your experience.” Hayter created lo-fi songs that abruptly ended or faded in and out to emphasize the “found sound” approach. Hayter's powerful voice and prepared piano alternate between beautiful and terrible, reflecting her religious views.
“A lot of the language surrounding Christianity really is quite beautiful and poetic but is also, or can be, pretty horrifying,” she remarked. Hayter does more than sing on “Saved!” Her attempt at glossolalia—speaking in tongues—is a hallmark of Pentecostalism, according to Duke Divinity School historian Grant Wacker.
“It’s important to understand how fundamental speaking in tongues is to the identity of historic Pentecostals,” Wacker said, recalling the religious pressure he observed as a child.
That Hayter converts such a precious and fundamental part of the faith into a performance while creating conditions that could bring tongues about could be seen as dishonest. However, Wacker claims that Pentecostals use comparable methods.
The pastor would tell teens, ‘Well, just start talking faster and faster, and before long, your tongue will just fall into it,’” he said. In a “worshipful context,” Wacker said, methods can be used to generate glossolalia. Seth Manchester, her producer and recording engineer, suggested sleep deprivation, fasting, and listening to tongues.
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