We are excited to share an interview between Sybaritic Narcissist zine and Bartram Haugh!
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SN: Can you tell us about and explain the name “Bartram Haugh?”
BH: Bartram-Haugh is the name of the estate in Sheridan Le Fanu’s gothic novel “Uncle Silas.” It embodies the type of physical environment I would prefer to exist within.
SN: What kind of music is this? What do you consider your style or genre to be?
BH: More than gothic rock I am striving for something closer to 19th century gothic literature. Perhaps gothic dream pop.
SN: Can you tell us more about the origin of this sound?
BH: 20 years ago I would lie about listening to Cocteau Twins or Lycia for endless hours, reading 18th and 19th century gothic novels - reverby atmospheric darkness of the sound mixing with the peculiarity of the novels. I read all of Sheridan Le Fanu that way - the 1977 Arno edition in blue leather. I checked them out of the local university library, a few volumes at a time. These were some of the happiest moments I can recall. I was young enough to think the world shouldn’t be organized in any other way. Also, reading things like Crowley, the Golden Bough, and other classic occult resources for the first time. Sometimes in the library itself, with a portable CD player that played mp3 CDs, and headphones. It was perhaps the greatest level of comfort and contentment I have experienced. The library was in a brutalist architectural style - a concrete castle.
I feel like the sound, spirit, focus of Bartram Haugh reflects the sensations of those moments. Dreampop, the occult, the gothic, obscured symbolism.
SN: What type of instruments are used?
BH: Mostly Waldorf Streichfett for string/synth sounds, and a stratocaster. And my all-black Fender Aerodyne bass.
SN: The guitar sound is quite unique. What’s going on there?
BH: I’ve used this guitar sound for 20 years - it’s a strat running through various reverb and echo effects, and then finally through distortion. It elongates the sound of the guitar, and saturates it with decay from the echo and reverb. It is treated as a more synth-like, or voice-like instrument. The concept owes a lot to Lycia’s album “Ionia,” which I have listened to fanatically for years.
SN: What is the underlying message?
BH: This music is atmosphere, alternate reality. The immensity of a gothic novel, or watching every episode of the original Dark Shadows. It’s escapist fantasy, although that fantasy has become a very real part of my identity. It is a work only possible through significant isolation.
SN: What do you want your listeners to take away from the music?
BH: I want them to take themselves away with the music. Escape into dream and shadowy internal passion. You can remain there endlessly.
SN: What are five albums you would say are kindred spirits to Bartram Haugh?
BH: Lycia’s “Ionia.” (Really their whole discography.) Cocteau Twins “Treasure.” Dead Can Dance “Dead Can Dance.” David Bowie “Heroes.” The Incredible String Band “The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter.”
SN: Speaking of isolation, you live on an island in Alaska. Why, and for how long?
BH: I have lived on Revillagigedo Island for 13 years. I originally moved here to be somewhere dark, beautiful, and separate. It is advantageous it is within the US. The region is dominated by the 17 million acre Tongass National Forest. Revillagigedo Island is around the size of Rhode Island, but only has about 25 miles of road from end to end of the main road system. There are numerous unconnected logging roads you can access by boat.
SN: What influence does southeast Alaska have on your music?
BH: The landscape here is otherworldly, dark, and mostly uninhabited by humans. I live in a massive archipelago dominated by mountains, islands, and powerful grey water. I spend a great deal of time hiking, wandering, daydreaming. I actually live in the rainiest area of the US - Ketchikan - unless you include Pohnpei in the Federation States of Micronesia. (A place where I have also spent time.) Most days are grey and rain-soaked. It is not so much an influence as it is a reflection of self, or self-validation.
SN: You have been releasing a new full-length album per month for a number of months now. Why this timing?
BH: I recorded several albums in a single, prolonged effort. It gives me the sound I need, consistently, for a full discography. Working this way has been highly productive, and improved efficiency. There is less waste on songs that are subpar, or that don’t work. I hate “task switching” between projects. One month between full-length albums is the maximum spacing that I can tolerate - the temptation to release everything at once is enormous. I have been taking this same approach with my gothic shoegaze project Asenath Anyox, as well - the discography, consisting of several albums, is complete, but I am trying to space them out.
I used to think one song at at time. Then I came to think in terms of one album at a time, but have come to think bigger, which is a theme in my life beyond music, as well.
Here is how I believe it happened. Several years ago I began using CDBaby for my black metal band Skaltros (now defunct). CDBaby charged a per-album fee. To minimize my fees, I began developing double-albums. Double albums are not twice as complex to manage and deal with at once - they are four times as complex. I found this complexity extremely addictive. I developed new working methods for writing, composing, and recording double albums; these pushed me harder and further, and I pushed them harder and further. Now, rather than thinking in terms of one album at a time, or one double album at a time, I think in terms of discographies. It actually is a bother to slow down and release one album at a time… to space them out. I think about the people who could be listening to the albums each day, but who are not. What are they doing instead? And with COVID-19 ravaging the world, perhaps there are people who need and want more music - who would specifically enjoy my music? This thought caused me to release all of the Masquerade Generation albums in quick succession. Releasing everything all at once probably reduced the exposure and attention it might have garnered.
I understand you are supposed to space out your releases very strategically, particularly in this day and age of search engine optimization, algorithms, etc. But none of that actually fits with my creative processes.
SN: What impact does the form of media and the manner of its consumption impact your music and creative processes?
BH: It really doesn’t. As I just alluded to, I struggle to reconcile my methods of creation with the systems of distribution and commerce available. I prefer CDBaby. A number of people post Bartram Haugh music on Youtube - I don’t mind. They can feel free to do that.
SN: How do you feel about digital music files versus physical media?
BH: I used to despise it, initially. However, I think owning a lot of objects unnecessarily is unethical, and wasteful. So, I have come to strongly prefer music which exists in an ephemeral, non-physical form.ds
SN: How do you expect to be rewarded for your work as an artist/musician? Money? Fame? Something else?
BH: Nothing. My music is not part of an exchange. I expect nothing from it. If you start thinking about money or fame, your music ends up becoming a cheap accounting math problem, and the solution is always the lowest common denominator.
SN: How has COVID-19 impacted your music?
BH: I have a great deal of familiarity with terrible diseases, and their wages upon human life, having lived in rural Zambia as a Peace Corps volunteer. With respect to COVID-19, I have taken a path of self-isolation that is more intense than most. I do not want to contract it, or transmit it to anyone else. The nature of the disease, and Americans’ reaction to it, seems to verify most of my theories about humans, humanity, disease, and the flaws and ethical failings of our society.
Initially I thought “self-isolation will be very good for creativity.” But in actuality, knowledge of the spread of death across the world is a spiritual mire - it is very contrary to creativity. Yet after months of adjustment, and hours to spend, I have ended-up being more creative than I have at any other time in my life. There simply isn’t much else to do, the world is a dark place, and enacting my dreams and spirit through music is a very worthwhile undertaking. I suppose that isn’t so different from life when a pandemic is not occurring - that life is not fantastic, but that you can make your mental and emotional experience of it fantastic
SN: Your music is very dream-like. What do you actually dream about while you sleep?
BH: There are numerous themes which have reoccurred throughout my dreams for over 30 years. The most prominent reoccurring dream - which I dream about in depth at least once per week - is living in a large house that is crumbling. Oftentimes the house I live in is part of a much larger house that is in a much more advanced state of decay. Or, sometimes I am living in a house that is decaying, but next to a very large house that is abandoned and in much worse condition. It is very similar to the setting on Dark Shadows - the concept of the mansion with numerous closed-off rooms, and the “old house” nearby. I have spent massive amounts of my life within this scenario, across hours and hours of dreams. It is also somewhat unnerving to think my property includes a small cabin nearby, which is sort-of exactly like a second, decaying house.
Other themes include abandoned hotels, malls, and museums, and a sense of not being able to find adequate privacy and cleanliness.
SN: What is your audience like?
BH: I really am not sure. I get interest from gothic outsider-type people; oftentimes from Europe. I seem to get more interest from France, Belgium, and Italy, plus other Mediterranean locations. Someone sent me a message and told me the music makes them happy. I find it difficult to understand how someone would find happiness within my music, although that is actually the point of origin - my happiest moments in the shadows of libraries and storm clouds. The sound of rain violently striking a library roof. But, how did they find it?
SN: How does living on an island impact how you work and think?
BH: Ketchikan seems like it is stuck in the early 90s in many ways - sort-of like Twin Peaks preserved within a cultural glacier - which fits well with the darkwave and other types of music I make. I don’t keep up with pop culture or counterculture, and am not really aware of the trends out there. I am completely outside the sphere of influence of most everything else going on.
SN: Do you have any closing thoughts?
BH: Think of music as a filter. Use it to filter out all the elements of life you despise, and enhance the things that make you feel alive and immersed in the joy of existence.
