Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter blurs lines between reality, performance and research with ‘Saved!’
LOS ANGELES — The bones that embody an album can take many shapes. They may tell a story, follow a genre or soundtrack a film.
But thanks to her interest in religion and her education in art, literature and linguistics, Kristin Hayter found herself in a unique position to embark on a kind of anthropological experiment through her latest album.
Released under the name Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter, “Saved!” is a concept album which explores a fictionalized conversion to Pentecostalism.
“When people ask me like, ‘What is it?’ I’m like — I honestly don’t know what to say,” she says of her album, ahead of the second of two recent performances at the Masonic Lodge at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Forever Cemetery. “It’s supposed to sound kind of like found sound, field recordings, that kind of thing.”
Although not attempting to portray a genuine conversion or create a piece of historical research, Hayter, who previously recorded under the moniker Lingua Ignota, used the album to meditate on how people tell stories about their perceived realities. As she made it, she found herself thinking about the concept of documentary storytelling and “what is edited out and what we choose to leave in.”
“Saved!” is made up of a combination of recognizable Christian hymns, including “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus” and “How Can I Keep from Singing,” as well as original and sometimes more subversive tracks like “All of My Friends Are Going to Hell.”
That range reflects Hayter’s following, from devout Christians — including a snake handler from West Virginia who extended to her an open invitation — to those vehemently opposed to religion.
“I was expecting more outrage,” she said plainly. “But I think there’s enough ambiguity in it and the ambiguity is pretty intentional, where I’m not requesting or requiring people to have any kind of particular response. Your experience is going to dictate what you hear.”
To emphasize that “found sound” approach, Hayter recorded in a lo-fi style, often abruptly ending or fading in and out of a song. Hayter’s powerful voice, accompanied by her prepared piano, vacillates between beautiful and terrifying in a manner not unlike the way in which she thinks about religion.
“A lot of the language surrounding Christianity really is quite beautiful and poetic but is also, or can also be, pretty horrifying,” she said.