sorry I didn't mean to get pet on your ass I it's uh I disavow disavow that didn't happen I didn't say that retract retracted all right hi everyone Anthony fantano here the internet's busiest music nerd I hope you're doing well we're about to embark on a uh what I hope is a fantastic and informative exclusive conversation with the one and only Kristen hater a producer well not well I mean yeah obviously a producer of own music co-producer her own music uh singer songwriter uh multi-instrumentalist uh someone who wears many hats now that they are you
know effectively running their own label too uh as well which we will talk about that and the new record that you have coming up saved which is going to be dropping in November correct actually in like two weeks I think like two oober October 20 20th or 22nd something like that okay so before the month is even out there's a lot coming up uh you also have this Carnegie gig that I want to talk about as well um so uh you know I I feel like so much has changed between the last time we spoke
and and now and I feel like a good deal of at least the front end of this interview is going to be just like me just saying why you know to to a lot to a lot of these things um just to kind of get you to obviously spell them out because I I know you've explained some of these changes recently but not all of them or not all of your explanations actually reach people's ears a lot of the time or sometimes there's like you know confusion between point a and point B or sometimes it
feels like there's a an elaborate game of telephone going on on the internet when you're telling people things and kind of you know um revealing your motivations behind why certain things are different or changing and so on and so forth so uh to kind of do this off the bat and you know maybe get the most obvious shift out of the way um why from this point forward go you know as a Performing Artist under just kind of your own name uh as opposed to you know kind of holding on to the lingua ignota name
and brand that people have known you for up until this point yeah um the past couple years have been really important for me to just uh figure out my life figure out myself and move on from a bunch of painful and so I decided that uh the project um lingy was uh no longer it no longer felt urgent to do um it felt like uh I was trying to do a lot of internal work and make myself better and having to continuously be stuck in that uh cycle of performance and doing that music was uh
extremely complicated and difficult to keep doing so it was just time to to move on it also kind of stopped being challenging um I became really uh I guess boring and painful was the death nail for for lingy for me and that like I I knew what devices and what conceits worked for lingua and it was no longer something it was it became like second nature and it was no longer super challenging for me so I wanted to uh as I was trying to find Value in myself to take back my given name and to
start performing under my given name jazzed up a little bit with the Rev which is a I was ordained uh in about five minutes uh in a Spring Hill Suite online outside of Nashville Tennessee while I was on tour so anybody can become a a minister or a reverend essentially um and uh yeah so it's just about um like moving through moving forward and wanting to really kind of reclaim my my own name I think and the the Rev is that something you see yourself kind of sticking with for just kind of the current album
cycle given what we're seeing are kind of the themes of the current record that you're about to put out or do you do you see yourself like kind of holding on to that going forward with even albums Beyond this one it might go forward I'm honestly not sure I'm kind of just taking everything as it comes right now um we'll see how it goes I suppose and you know to sort of be explicit about it we're not just talking about putting you know your your past musical pen name to rest you're also kind of like
leaving the material of that era behind as well in terms of like you know still performing it and and everything like that yeah yeah it's definitely it's all like I'm I'm not performing lingua anymore I'm doing my final performances are in London next week actually so I'm happy to fulfill those obligations but I'm also just like really ready to be done uh yeah and you know speaking of I guess kind of becoming a little disillusioned with the project and the material and what you're kind of seeing as like you know a lack of a challenge
there um you know what what do you see now are kind of the challenges facing you with the current record and the name change I mean what kind of things are you attempting to do that you find challenging at this moment or exciting about continuing to make music and continuing to put you know records out um you know doing doing things going back to DIY um has been a big challenge it has been um also a really exciting challenge uh and it's something that like I've always been sort of an outsider and never really felt
like I belonged in the industry and so and don't necessarily have the personality to be part of this industry but I I wanted to figure out how I could uh continue to make music while like not participating in a lot of stuff that I don't like very much anymore um so creating the label uh Perpetual flame Ministries and kind of um take having a lot more control over what it is I'm doing um while also you know being more involved is more of a challenge uh things aren't as spelled out for you and I'm lucky
that I have my my buddy KW who does a lot of the logistical aspect of of the label and everything um so it that has been challenging it is it's also challenging in that like as I mentioned before um the the language of lingua ignota became kind of second nature and it was also something that I was able to it had like a lot of uh resource material behind it and a couple years of performing in the DIY scene cutting my teeth and in front of like 40 people and nobody cared what was going on
so I was able to do a lot of um like really experiment with the project to get the tone right and that's not really an option now I I'm kind of going into it like uh with some some degree of recognition and uh you know need to make sure that the tone is correct kind of out of the gate and and there's been some confusion so far already which I anticipated but um it's it will it will all work itself out um when when you're speaking of like the language of your music and the language
of the project like what what are you referring to specifically like the things that you're saying are the artistic language and Aesthetics of what you're doing and you know what do you feel like you're leaving behind and embracing now in instead with this new record yeah um I'm talking I'm talking about both I'm talking about like the ma thematic material as well as kind of the Aesthetics and all of uh all of the devices that served to um to augment the Thematic material and to make that uh visible I'm leaving behind this the stuff that
I think lingy was most known for which was like the the you know dealing with themes of abuse and Trauma and and like un untenable suffering um and moving into uh talking about healing sort of but in like a very ugly way um the thing is I'm still I'm still the same person so I still think about about making artwork the same way but I'm choosing to use like a different set of references now and and a different um like different materials somewhat although um I do still you know there is a through line for
sure um I I guess let's talk about some of those through lines but also some of those differences I mean one of the things that I'll say going through the new album that I I've noticed and I think any fan is going to notice once they hear the entire record is just how um raw and Stark and somewhat lowf and STP back a lot of the music is in comparison with all of those like really thick noisy ornate pieces that you were dropping especially on Center get ready um you know what caused you to go
in that very high contrast very simple um you know not not in a a sort of insulting way but almost like you know kind of basic you know rudimentary you know back to basic sort of Direction with the um you know musical Arrangements on this album yeah um the record is um meant to be very stripped back meant to be very Stark meant to be like austere um and also to be to be noisy without having much noise in it uh technically and so um the focus is really kind of on the material and the
reason that it is uh lowii and focusing on the material is that I wanted to document the process of getting saved I wanted to document the process of religious conversion um through the Evangelical tradition um and it was an Earnest attempt to do so uh through this record and um unsure whether I succeeded or not but uh I wanted to create a sense of like objectivity and and a kind of documentary feel to it um that that you would hear in like a folkways recording or like a Smithsonian recording or a recording by like Alan
LX or something and that though that was definitely the like um the Sonic palet that we were working with was like I wanted to sound like a musicologist recorded this in like the 30s or the 40s and um you know that it's been lost to the annals of time for the past you know 100 years or some right that was that was definitely the objective too and so it's it's less about for me like the individual songs themselves and more about the documentation of the process yes I'm I'm I'm yes because like I heard it
and I was like I bet she's doing this and I was like cuz this sounds like some kind of like anthropological project you know where you've like stumbled across some kind of like in the sticks Christian cult and they make this certain kind of music or whatever and you're just like kind of rough recording it just to document it to have some kind of like you know historical you know proof of it existing or doing whatever at one point um so so with that and with you know the name you're attaching to the record and
everything like that I mean there's a lot of theatrics involved I I guess I'll say you know it's it's it's like it's obviously stripped back in comparison with some of your recent stuff but it seems like it's just as theatrical in some ways because like I mean you know you you're not you're not literally living in a Christian cult in the middle of the woods you know so it's like you know how are you kind of putting yourself in that world and that mindset to where you're embodying it you know and writing songs from that
perspective in in a way if that's pointed enough of a question yeah um so this this project originally was the the concept for it was to record as many hymns as possible and in and with the hope that in the repetition of hymns I would find Salvation in some capacity um and so there is uh about there or there are there are about three hours of Music total and um other like uh other material that I don't want to spoil for people necessarily um at this point but um so it is it is like a
a a fairly scopey large um large amount of stuff that we committed to tape um and it created doing so many of these hymns created a sense of like of madness in me I think and um you know for for some parts of the record um I tried to um evoke uh like a an a personal transcendental experience uh by you know fasting a bit or sleep deprivation bit or having Seth just like Blair stuff at me in this in the studio for you know an extended period of time to see what would happen um
so yeah it was um there was some preparation and and I also you know went um went to a lot of worship services for for the very at various Pentecostal churches to kind of see what was happening and and what it sounded like and um so there there was definitely a lot of uh prep a lot of like reading doomsday literature like I have thousands of Doomsday Christian pamphlets that I've gotten off of eBay at this point like just just lots of uh Lots so so you yourself are being kind of anthropological about it about
the whole process for sure yeah for sure huh definitely um and that's that's one of my favorite things about art making is is like the the resch component and you know figuring out how things work and putting them together um H you're kind of talking about something I want to kind of contrast with our last conversation you know given what you're talking about in terms of like the the place that Faith plays in your creative process with this and kind of like the idea of conversion and so on and so forth like with the last
record you put out or at least after the last record you put out when we talked about sort of like Christianity and spirituality as kind of like you know an abstract thing at that point you more or less had this attitude you're like eh kind of iffy on the faith thing at the moment you know um has that changed for you much at this point after this process or just after everything that has transpired in you know the time since we last spoke I think I it I think it definitely has but I still don't
know what's going on um it sounds like such a cop out I I feel like I really should have like a definitive answer but I don't um I really I still don't know but I definitely have a much more um uh a much more open sense of what God is and what God can be at this point uh but and I I think that my work particular this work is is intending to engage with that question intending to ask that question of myself and of my listener as well I think um you know I wanted
to ask you about kind of the writing and recording process with these songs too because obviously you're doing so much research into this music and um you know you're looking into all these hymns you're learning these hymns you uh also prior to this had been doing these kind of like double build performances where you would kind of come out and play all of the lingua material but then prior to that you would do like this kind of straightforward you know singing and piano performance where you're just doing like hymns and stuff like that um you
know at what point you know do you feel like in the creative process of this record you know I I I I guess like where's I guess the border between you know the material that you're borrowing from or originality here because I imagine like in the process of making these tracks you're almost like sampling you know you're sort of like borrowing certain chord progressions or like lyrical themes or you know ideas like how you know how did you personally feel like when you were gathering all of these ideas and all these materials but then you
know having to put your own spin on them in a way to sort of like make these tracks yeah um I mean technically I would say that this record is split pretty evenly between Originals that I wrote and and hymns um but at the same time I don't know if I can say that the originals are really Originals the the really fascinating thing about hims to me is that uh often there are pieces of music that go back to I mean ones that we know and often you know some of the ones that I sing
on this record they go back to like the 1800s or the 1700s and sometimes their origin can't be traced but a lot of times they go back to Sacred Heart music or they go back to um African-American spirituals and so and they've evolved over time in terms of like you know the various Renditions of them as well exactly and so they they change context and they their meaning changes yeah uh demographically and and soop politically and um yeah so so so that that's essentially what I'm getting at because that's something that people don't necessarily understand
about hmns in general it's like they don't always understand that there's not necessarily like a known writer for a lot of them and and you could you could find a very popular himym and if you look into it you could find dozens maybe at minimum of different versions of the same song over and over and over exactly yeah so so you know in in effect you're pretty much just doing that but for yourself on this record in a lot of ways essentially yeah yeah so you know at at what point I guess or you know
I I I guess what I want to ask maybe specifically to kind of get into one of the teasers is like all my friends are going to hell like you know that track for example how much of that song Do You Feel Like is like you know he my original thoughts or points or sort of like perspectives my own stories that I'm putting into the track how much of it is that as opposed to I'm just like kind of just pulling apart a bunch of pieces of car in a junkyard and just like assembling them
into a new piece you know because it's uh you know again kind of go through that process because I think a lot of people don't really again know that background about hymns in the way that you do yeah I mean um so all of my friends is is a little bit of a special case that one is definitely an original yeah um but that a lot of the the kind of uh the narrative Arc of it comes from uh like 50s fire and brimstone songs by people like the louen brothers um and their songs like
the Christian life or um the kneeling drunkard's plea like those kinds of things that are about you know uh verse course verse that substantiate like someone has sinned and then uh this other person has sinned and then this other person has sinned and but I have I have also sinned but I am I am in the process of repenting and changing and um so that that's like a pretty common um Arc that you'll hear in those kinds of songs and um and I the music itself you know came from came from me I'm not exactly
sure what it's what it's based on but it it it does definitely pull from from that specific place um let's uh you know kind of rewind a bit because I wanted to ask you about like other things that kind of make this new era different for you because I I think to most people who kind of look at your art and look at what you do in kind of a very surface level way um they're going to see that like you know between this record and the last record uh you know Christianity and spirituality obviously
play major themes you know um but obviously you know these are very different eras and projects for you personally like digging past that um and and you know maybe also kind of the mention of uh kind of suffering earlier that you were talking about like what other things do you feel like you know kind of make what you're doing now different from anything that you've done before up until this point yeah I mean um I am I'm in like I'm in a good place personally and mentally which is very new for me uh so I'm
I'm I like I changed so much about my life and about myself to to try to figure out how to Value myself as a person and I moved and I live in this insane house that's trying to kill me now and I love it very much and um a relationship with where you live yeah yeah um and I I have a really really wonderful sweet partner um who treats me very well and um and all of the kind of bad stuff that was in my life is gone so I am like I'm well and I
feel comfortable and happy and uh pretty content and so this music definitely comes from a different place mentally for sure um sorry I was dist people people in chat are very much aware of your lore and somebody wanted you to say if you have anything to you know shed light upon with this uh they wanted to know about your culture room uh yeah and any any any any any comments on the the room full of coal uh yeah it is a room full of coal uh it is so the basement is a fairly standard Victorian
basement uh which means that it was a workspace in the 1800s and that it was very heavily trafficked and frequented by like this the servant class um and so that it has like a bunch of different rooms that have different purposes uh including there's a room that has a meat smoker which is terrifying um and there the coal room I assume was full was was full of coal and continues to be full of coal um and I so I used it as the as the setting for the record basic it's a basement record basically like
I set up a whole doomsday bunker down there and everything so and all these things are good because now you just have your own servants who work these various apparatuses and rooms now yeah the the spirits of of servants pass definitely well I mean they're okay they're Spirits okay well I mean you should still you should still pay them a fair wage that's all I'm saying agree um okay so so getting back to uh you know what you're talking about here okay so so you're in a much better place when kind of like you know
creating this record and and making this music but still seems like you know at least from the material that you've teased forward so far that like in in a sense you know you're still accessing a certain type of pain or Darkness you know what I mean like how do you feel I I guess like you know being in a more positive place but still maybe feeling at least like that pull to you know Express something in your art that might be a little dark or a little you know um uh unfortunate like your friends all
going to hell you I guess like with things feeling better what still pulls you back into that place where you kind of like you know want to want to get into that th those darker ideas yeah I I don't think I'll ever be making like legitimately joyful music that's just not there's there's there's not like a Walking on Sunshine cover on the bonus on the deluxe so sadly on the deluxe edition of the record you tell me we'll what the hell are we doing here if that's not going to be on the deluxe of the
record um yeah I so healing is ugly I've found it's ugly and it's not um it's not I've always hated that word healing and I hate I hate the language of pop psychology and how it's so so like prevalent now but like um we think of healing and terms of like this very kind of socially acceptable self- gentleness self-care y da whatever and I mean which all of that's valid for sure um but no you don't have to preface it I mean it's like you know let let the headlines come Christen hater takes on the
pop psychology community no the flood of Instagram posts come flying in uh no I just I just have found that it's it's been there have been very beautiful things about it and there have been very ugly things about it very ugly realizations and very like um it's been kind of an ugly process and if you know and and so the the parab I created for that or the analogy I created for that was you know this Evangelical conversion was personal transcendental experience was you know reaching to God and kind of The Most Extreme Ways possible
um and so yeah that that that is where that kind of comes from I don't think uh I think you know healing is very different for everyone and for me it has been painful at times uh so so yeah do terms like self-care make you wise they do they do do do do do you do anything for self-care no Pony game Pony game does that does that get a shout out on the album healing through nurturing the pony it sadly does not uh the liner notes are very strange for this record but you know I'll
say it now like shout out to Star Stable and all of my ponies in My stable um um let let me ask about the um the formation of the label for a little bit I mean you know you're you're how how does it feel to kind of like you know distance yourself a little bit from the record label machine and just kind of you know be doing it uh under under your own name your own brand your own thing I mean is it easier in some ways is it harder in some ways like what have
the pros and cons of that proven to be so far yeah it h it has been easier and harder both definitely um um you know we don't have like we don't have the capital of a record label necessarily so um everything is coming out of our own pocket and we're um you know we've we've put all of our stuff into this um and uh and it has also you know it's it's been a challenge to kind of like get going to find distribution to you know do all that stuff and we're very lucky to have
found like secretly Canadian for instance and to find people who are willing to work with us and to take a chance on us even though we're we're new and green um but it is it is such like you know my uh my objective has never been to be like to be famous my objective has always been to make weird challenging stuff and I could have you know post Center get ready gone to a large label or done something you know done something else and there's certainly people who do that and like credit to them but
for me like that's that's not what that's not what I want I want to be in control of my stuff and doing exactly what I want to do and this this is that and so I mean at this point I I'm sure it's kind of like you know a monkey off of your back to not be sort of like worrying about what your relationship with a label is um you know in regards to how your music sounds or how you're putting out your art or anything like that but like there's still that relationship that you
have with your audience which I mean over the years has proven to certainly be like an intense one you know um how do you feel like that has kind of like progressed up until this point because I mean there's a lot of layers to it you know from what I've observed and I don't know if there are many artists out there that you know have the connection with their listeners that that you do you know because I mean you know people pass out to your shows you know over the emotional intensity of what you do
and what they perceive and what you do you know there are people that follow you around and look at you almost like you're a cult leader you know and simultaneously you know there are elements of that that you Embrace there are elements of that that you also I think try to dispel too by being personable online and being silly and not taking yourself too seriously as well well um and you know I I think also recently with the release of that kind of mini documentary of your tour you tried to also kind of humanize yourself
a bit in the eyes of the people that follow you and what you do like you know how do you feel like people are kind of perceiving you at this moment as an artist and with this name change and how might you think they'll take your kind of you know change with this uh new album musically yeah I mean that's that's a really good question and I honestly I am not sure we'll see what happens but uh you know I think with lingua like people tended to think uh you know not knowing me people people
would think that I'm this like inscrutable demon and the reality is that my personality is like 95% quietly trying to manage my Terror and the other 5% is like goofy little goober like I'm such I'm just a goofball and um uh you know my music came from from a lot of pain but that's not where I necessarily want to be um and so yeah it it has been um it has been like a very intense relationship with with my fan base and I really care a lot about them I know that my music has resonated
with them for a reason and um but I think I wanted to show them a way through and I think I didn't want to let like um you know the note of like the last couple years be the note that I wanted to leave everybody on like I didn't want to you know disappear and be like well my life I'm you know uh but I I wanted to be like I I feel like if I can do anything good I can show people that they're you know no matter how hopeless you feel no matter how
alone you feel no matter how you know up things have been for you you can find your way through and it doesn't have to be the way that I found but you know I've been in such hopeless places um where I thought I would never get out and I I want to show that you can and uh so I hope and actually like there a few songs on this record that I wrote specifically for my fan base that are actually kind of Love Letters to them in a way um that you know may this comfort
and protect you and um a couple others that I had either Like A specific group of people or specific people in mind um who I've either just met briefly or come to know over the years and so um it is the thing is for me as as and it is for you as well so um you know well I I'm not sure how people will respond and I I don't spend very much time on social media these days because it terrifies me so um so I'm not as engaged as I was but I still you
know really care you know what other relationships or connections do some of the other tracks on this record speak to that you might be willing to kind of you know share with us outside outside of that audience connection that you just mentioned yeah uh I mean mostly it's just about trying to find God I think uh and find find myself um there's so many ways of there's so there's so many fragmentations of the self on this record um and so many kind of like in tense emotional twistings that happen um to try to get to
the the root of the self I think um I don't think there's necessarily anyone else that it's about really okay all right um you know how do you feel like this uh change in what you're doing with this album might impact as far as like you know um the live performances that you're going to be doing under you know this name going forward will it look roughly like you know what you were doing with those very straightforward kind of him performances or will there be like some additions to that or some add-ons yeah I'm trying
to figure it out now um I'm working through a bunch of different ideas trying to figure out how to recreate like the the texture of the record and the sonics of the record um and how to create a sort of intensive storytelling process uh in the performances uh without being without being like too straightforward about it um so I'm like diving back into my performance art conceptual art you know worlds and like thinking about how how to best convey some of these ideas um I don't think it will necessarily be as straightforward as as past
hm performances but it's definitely not going to be like uh you know self flag in with shop lights anymore uh like like but um so I mean will we shall see um yeah trying to trying to figure out how I I really want to focus on the music and focus on the voice so I think there will be a lot of just like I think these performances will be a little bit more musical than prior um than prior performances but again we'll see I tend to kind of like work things out as I go so
we we'll see um you know kind of also speaking to that process uh in Chicago not too long ago you recently sort of held your own Festival event uh multi-day Festival event um you know how do you feel like that the process of that you know sort of like went overall what were some of the takeaways and are you planning on you know doing it again as well we are planning on doing another Perpetual flame Festival I mean technically the the upcoming London shows is uh Perpetual flame yeah the um and then we're uh oh
I don't know if I'm allowed to say this or not uh oh okay I I believe we're doing it again uh next year um but uh yeah we we did um we did uh a Tent Revival show on the Sunday which uh or two of them which was uh trying to what I was trying to do was a structural reenactment of a Tent Revival service um and also trying to play a couple new songs to see like to to test them out and to see how they went um but it was It was kind of
the issue of what I was talking about in the very beginning where it's like you know I was kind of throwing a bunch of spaghetti at the wall for those and I didn't quite nail the tone um and they weren't supposed they were definitely supposed to be kind of their own entity um and aren't supposed to be like what the new performances are going to be but it was uh it was a very interesting process to try to do like okay can I can I do a sermon maybe uh can can I save people should
I save people I don't know like at this point I so doing that for the first time in front of you know a few hundred people um and seeing what worked and seeing what didn't was really really interesting and so I did look at a bunch of people's like feedback about that and I was like yeah I I agree with like we didn't quite nail nail the tone there but um so yeah going forward it it's helpful to hear you know what people think to some extent so that I can course correct when necessary uh
but overall like it was an incredible Festival it was really wild to do like Caligula stuff and then do sinner stuff and then do like this wild unhinged Tent Revival service um and to see like all of my friends play who are all so incredibly talented it was it was really wonderful and to like have the community there and we all we finished it off with like a new metal karaoke which was just delightful it's just such a nice way to end the weekend uh God some people crushed it absolutely crushed it and in in
terms of like you know uh the the Revival sort of thing is is is that something you see yourself kind of taking a whack at again and you know when when you do see yourself doing that how much of it in your own mind is like I'm making a genuine attempt at this as opposed to like this is just like merely a performance and it's like you know me embodying something yeah I I definitely my objective is is not to bring people to Jesus um necessarily um but I want to perhaps show what goes into
trying to create a transcendental State um so I will have to work on that and think about it more over the next bunch of months and see how see how like the the future performances go as we're as we're planning touring and stuff before before maybe taking another stab at a at a Revival uh cuz yeah it's it's it's a lot so okay um before the album comes out at the end of toward the end of the month is there anything else that we need to be looking out for in terms of like more singles
or like visuals or anything like that um uh you know as far as this roll out goes or are we just waiting on the record we're waiting on the record at this point we're doing a new special edition uh vinyl for band camp Friday tomorrow but other than that like we're we're Trucking along and and yeah it's it's coming and end is I mean as as far as like all the other material that you were talking about that you sort of like you know were uh recording and documenting and exploring throughout this process I mean
you know I I imagine it was kind of difficult to you know end up whittling it all down to 11 Tracks you know like is is there any point at which you know the fans may end up seeing like some of that extra stuff or anything else that was like kind of left on The Cutting Room floor in the process of this album oh for sure yeah that's common and you know do do you foresee it sort of being uh kind of released in tandem with or in connection with like this album or do you
see it kind of like being rolled into another project just kind that's kind of its own thing down the road you know we're we're not entirely sure yet we're trying to figure that out um and what makes sense because it is so much music and I kind of feel like I want to do more so we'll we'll see um we'll see what happens to it uh but it's it will definitely it will definitely find its way out there okay all right well listen I appreciate you coming through and being an open book and uh giving
us an idea of how to kind of conceptualize the album as we're listening to it uh when it comes out in a few weeks thank you so much thank you for having me aboard tonight I appreciate you coming through again and no problem you're always invited back here even if uh a few days after the album comes out you want you want to say more stuff about it just let me know thank you and if you want to say more about it two days after that I mean you know I might be a little hesitant
but we'll we'll still have you on just let me know well I appreciate it thank you all right I'll talk to you later thank you all right bye bye bye