Caligula (stylized in all caps) is the third studio album by American musician Lingua Ignota, released July 19, 2019 through Profound Lore Records. Recorded after the signing with the record label in 2018, the album features collaborations with several other musicians, a departure from the recording process of her previous album All Bitches Die (2017), which was done alone in a shed in the woods, and features more acoustic instrumentation than the aforementioned record. It thematically explores themes of abuse, misogyny, hate, vengeance and violence in its lyrics, inspired by Hayter's own experiences in Providence, and features influences from both classical and extreme music. The album received universal acclaim from music critics, and made appearances on several year-end lists.
Background and recording
In 2017, Lingua Ignota (real name Kristin Hayter) released her album All Bitches Die, which spread through word of mouth as she performed in Providence, where she was based. The record eventually came to the attention of Chris Bruni, the founder of Profound Lore Records, and it was reissued the following year via the record label to widespread acclaim within the experimental music community. Hayter was surprised by the attention it received, as she "did not think anyone would be interested" and "it was really just meant for hanging out in the Providence scene." She began work on another album at Bruni's request, this time with studio resources and people who she could collaborate with, in contrast to All Bitches Die, which she recorded in complete solitude "in a shed in the woods in Lincoln, Rhode Island."
Hayter recorded Caligula at Machines With Magnets studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, closely working with Seth Manchester, who engineered the album, and collaborated with several musicians such as drummer Lee Buford of sludge metal band the Body, Dylan Walker of grindcore band Full of Hell and Mike Berdan of noise rock band Uniform, the latter two providing backing vocals. Nonetheless, Hayter had "total autonomy over the work in the end", making the collaborations "more about the presence" and "having [her] community there, [her] close circle of trust". Hayter divulged that "everything [they] could do live [they] did," highlighting the use of string instruments on the album, although there is also "some synthetic MIDI and you can't tell sometimes." She further explained that the use of noise - some of it done by "clattering around [her] garage in utility lights that [she uses] during [her] set crashing around" - was "for texture, not in the large industrial sense." She and her ensemble also "wanted to introduce the concept of space—have it sound very large, but sound extremely intimate and close," which "can be very destabilizing with the space moving around the listener to where you aren't sure what is real and what is not."
Music and lyrics
Music journalists have noted the theme of abuse and misogyny on Caligula: Writing for The Guardian, Ben Beaumont-Thomas noted that Hayter "[emphasizes] the rage and despair of survivors of abuse," while Jessie Jeffrey Dunn Robinelli of Tiny Mix Tapes wrote that the album "lives in the aftermath of intimate partner abuse, in the shivering convulsions of rage and fear it leaves, in the furious movement between identification with and rejection of the abuse and the abuser, in failures of all sorts." In an interview with Kerrang!, she stated that on the album she is "taking you through a cycle of abuse", and added that she was looking at "abusive power, madness, depravity, narcissism" present in politics and communities, as well as "[herself] and [her] my own kind of madness as a result of trauma."