so, i tried to listen to this, and it's...

...you might think i'd like this. i really don't.

first, i should point out that it's essentially a nine inch nails remix record, in terms of actual music. but, nobody is really interested in the music in itself, and it's not like trent hasn't borrowed a few parts, himself

i like a lot of demented music, it's true, and i've never hidden it. but, there's a huge class of stuff that i can't relate to, and don't really go anywhere near. let's remember that i was born and raised an atheist, so this christian imagery is really a foreign culture, from my perspective. it's not shocking to me. i don't have any catholic guilt. etc. so, you'll notice that i like music that makes fun of christianity more than i like music that tries to subvert it or spin it around or whatever. sure: there's a psycho-analysis of this, too, but it's very different. i'm perhaps trying to protect myself from something that i recognize is dangerous by shielding myself from it with satire, as well as perhaps reacting to a level of alienation stemming from not being a part of the dominant cultural group, but i'm not working through the trauma of being damaged by a system of systemic child abuse that begins at birth. so, you won't see any satanic metal in my music collection, and you won't see any of this demented christianized goth, either. i'd rather listen to pagan music like coil than much of this catholic guilt that gets labeled goth music.

that said, what this actually sounds like is a kind of watered down version of a singer named diamanda galas, who started off doing experimental opera in the early 80s that drew from sources like xenakis and some of the more abstract opera that came out of the 20th century. but, it's almost tragic to put these things in the same paragraph: diamanda galas was a true virtuoso, with a seven octave vocal range and a tendency to draw on what are today considered european literary classics as she constructed absolutely frightening sound collages around deep literary cuts. diamanda galas is/was truly european high art.

while her earliest work is often cited as seminal, this is questionable; rather, you can hear exactly where lingua ignota is coming from if you check out diamanda galas' second record, panopticon.

but, if you were to do that, and even come close to understanding it, you'd see the deep sin behind what lingua ignota is doing, here. first, she's discarded the deep literary component for some kind of victim porn, and i'm being explicit in how i'm describing it: i don't know how you approach this, if not as pornography. there's really not another way to analyze it. you can talk about empathy, you can talk about expression, but in the end this is vicarious, and because it's vicarious, it's pornography. second, while i'm not going to exactly doubt lingua ignota's vocal abilities, i don't hear any indication that she has the range or training that galas had. third, the music has, as previously mentioned, been reduced to a series of samples, coming from pop artists like trent reznor, which is just the one that i immediately recognized. i'll let you find some more lifted riffs on your own.

i guess that if you've never heard of diamanda galas before, and you find something exciting about the porn, then my deconstruction is just bursting a bubble - you might think this is more creative than it is, and you might not realize why you're excited by it. but, we all know i'm next level.

i'm just seeing right through it.

and, i'm not sure that telling you to have fun anyways is the right thing to do, either.

https://linguaignota.bandcamp.com/album/caligula