Sainerine disfigures classical forms. The "Vancouver, Canada" based project combines opera vocals, post-industrial synth sound and auto-mutilation carried out with an industrial staple gun. Blood pours over a white dress. The wound is bandaged. Katherine Hillson invokes the operatic archetype of the fallen woman, reflecting on years of classical training to find the lines between traditional operatic narratives, practices of body modification, and "19th century opera's demand for blood sacrifice" (Susan McClary). Her work has toured across Canada and internationally, being curated by Anju Singh for Vancouver Noise Fest and by Ron Athey for Darkness Visible in Athens, Greece.

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"Blood serves as the material substance which binds and lubricates Sainerine. Bloody currents rush through cultural, religious and political narratives, studying structures of power and the marks they leave upon the body."

Absolute Underground 

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Under recent mentorship from Ron Athey, Katherine Hillson has begun development of a new work based on French neurologist Jean Martin Charcot's "four stages of the hysteric fit". She analyzes 19th century ideas of female madness in both medicine and opera, hailing Dr. Mary An Smart's interpretation of the Donizetti opera heroine Lucia di Lammermoor: “She goes to the place where nobody can touch her anymore, which is the madness.” 

 

"Sainerine's impact on the ambient music scene remains a testament to their fearless exploration of the boundaries between sound, ritual, and societal critique."

OBSKUR Music 

 

In Katherine Hillson's 2024 debut EP, "Sacrificator / Scarificator", she drained wounds of purity and obedience, struggling to remove a religious birthmark. The work was released on Bent Window Records, covered by Absolute Underground magazine and toured across Canada. Accompanying manifestos “Mutilation Autonomy” and “Bloodletting” present Katherine's studies of blood, body autonomy, medicine and religion. 

 

"Sainerine's performance is a heartbreaking and visceral piece exploring themes of religious trauma and bodily autonomy. Her music evokes the beauty of the sacred and the awe of religious experience intertwined with scorn for those who abuse and corrupt the sacred as a means of control. Through including herself as a canvas, she explores the control exerted by religious authority over the body, through a re-framing of harm and it's locus." 

Michael Broadhead

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Sainerine has scored several short films, including NOFAC3's Threads, which has been screened internationally, as well as the Edmonton Underground Film Festival screening of Maya Derren's A Ritual in Transfigured Time. Her music has has received radio play on Montreal's CKUT, Vancouver's CiTR and Calgary's CJSW.