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Giles Corey
"Sometime in the Spring of 2009 I tried to kill myself. Six months before that, I used a Voor’s Head Device for the first time."
This line opens the 150-page book that accompanies Giles Corey, an intensely personal, intimate portrait of depression that took me almost 4 years to make.
We've called this "acoustic music from the industrial revolution," and that's as good as anything. Dominated by the acoustic guitar, the music is a gloomy mixture of Americana influences, snippets of EVP recordings, ghostly choirs and deep, heavy organ. It ranges from very dark to triumphant, hushed quiet to crashingly loud.
The album follows a story arc of emotions that are detailed in the accompanying book, as much a part of this record as the music. The text switches between personal tales of struggles with depression, suicide, and a feeling of being lost, and the story of cult-leader and afterlife theorist Robert Voor. Voor's writings on death and the afterlife feature prominently across HAVE A NICE LIFE's "Deathconsciousness," Nahvalr's self-titled debut, and Giles Corey, making him the unifying factor behind most of the music I've written in the last 10 years.
This record is as personal and raw as anything I've ever done. Thank you for your interest.
This line opens the 150-page book that accompanies Giles Corey, an intensely personal, intimate portrait of depression that took me almost 4 years to make.
We've called this "acoustic music from the industrial revolution," and that's as good as anything. Dominated by the acoustic guitar, the music is a gloomy mixture of Americana influences, snippets of EVP recordings, ghostly choirs and deep, heavy organ. It ranges from very dark to triumphant, hushed quiet to crashingly loud.
The album follows a story arc of emotions that are detailed in the accompanying book, as much a part of this record as the music. The text switches between personal tales of struggles with depression, suicide, and a feeling of being lost, and the story of cult-leader and afterlife theorist Robert Voor. Voor's writings on death and the afterlife feature prominently across HAVE A NICE LIFE's "Deathconsciousness," Nahvalr's self-titled debut, and Giles Corey, making him the unifying factor behind most of the music I've written in the last 10 years.
This record is as personal and raw as anything I've ever done. Thank you for your interest.
150 pages, ebook
First published March 1, 2011
15 people are currently reading
535 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
July 24, 2021
I really liked this. You can tell Dan Barrett was very depressed when he wrote this, some of the stuff he wrote reminded me of the stuff I wrote when I was extremely depressed. I'm glad it ended on a semi-uplifting note. The story about Robert Voor was the best part about this, it was extremely well written and I would love to read an entire novel about him and his cult. The personal experiences of Dan Barrett made the entire thing more touching, almost voyeuristic. I'm glad to see he's doing better btw. But I'm just gonna come out and say it, he's not a great poet. A small portion of this was a bit amateur and I wish he had had someone to revise this and help him to put it in a more elegant or obtuse manner. Maybe that's just my personal preference, but I think the rest was great, I just think he's a much better writer of prose than poetry. I really do wish he'd write a fiction novel.
December 23, 2011
Giles Corey, a 150 page book that accompanies the self-titled album of the same name, is an extraordinary read in the most literal sense of the word. Part truth, part fiction; it's a riveting tale of the trials and tribulations of a very real period of extreme depression. What's genius here is that Dan manages to construct a false history that seems all too real through the supernatural and the occult, while stringing it into his own life. The last chapter is powerful in particular, in which he finally gets around to the actual historical figure that the book is named after, ending on both uplifting and depressing extremes.
It's a quick read, for sure, that many will be able to finish in an hour or so -and probably intended to be read alongside the album. However, this work stands as a piece of art well enough on its own.
It's a quick read, for sure, that many will be able to finish in an hour or so -and probably intended to be read alongside the album. However, this work stands as a piece of art well enough on its own.
December 3, 2025
if anhedonia hadn't butchered off my tongue, I would've written something eloquent about this. but at least the knotted tongue is on brand with Dan Barrett. he has been one of my go-to musicians for a couple years now, I'll read anything he writes. but read this at your own risk, it's drenched in muteness and suicidality. if you're not satisfied with your current levels of catatonic stupor or if you're a i-hate-myself beginner looking to go pro, definitely read this and also check out the eponymous album.
dan invented depression. this is transcendental nihilism at its most grating, most jarring.
dan invented depression. this is transcendental nihilism at its most grating, most jarring.
January 31, 2020
"If I did not wish to be alive, did I wish to be dead?"
Absolutely haunting.
Absolutely haunting.
June 14, 2025
Like a stripped down House of Leaves for depressed people. If you've listened to Dan Barret's album of the same name, it is a highly valuable companion piece for understanding some of the intricacies of the lyrics. Telling the short summary of a cult which centers on paranormal and spiritual experiences, the book describes the origins of the cult's leader and his various beliefs and occult practices, as well as detailing the depression that the narrator experiences both passively and as a result of their involvement with Voor's cult.
If viewed as a therapeutic exercise in suicidal ideation and the meaning of death and what lies beyond it, the book is perfectly succinct and delves deeply into a mind shattered. If you're looking for a story about a cult and its effect on the members, this book will fall short. It gives just enough detail to make you want more, and while I love this album deeply, the book felt like it struggled to connect itself to the music, almost like it could have existed separately. But I digress, the book can speak for itself, it's quick to read and I would recommend it to anyone looking for some serious, dark introspection.
If viewed as a therapeutic exercise in suicidal ideation and the meaning of death and what lies beyond it, the book is perfectly succinct and delves deeply into a mind shattered. If you're looking for a story about a cult and its effect on the members, this book will fall short. It gives just enough detail to make you want more, and while I love this album deeply, the book felt like it struggled to connect itself to the music, almost like it could have existed separately. But I digress, the book can speak for itself, it's quick to read and I would recommend it to anyone looking for some serious, dark introspection.
January 18, 2023
Tangina, gusto lang baliwin mga fans nito, e.
April 9, 2024
"I grabbed the rock; This is right. I felt it in my hands; I knew every atom of its structure. I knew what made it so hard. I knew how it felt. I knew what what it was like to be buried so deep. I knew what it was to be made from earth, a lifeless stone." - Daniel Barrett "Giles Corey" As the first book to start my journey into literature, it spoke to me. Deeply. I felt a connection between ideas, thought patterns, actions. From beginning to end, the tragic tale of fiction that was brought to life by Dan Barrett's experience of depression and suicidal tendencies/ideations brought me to tears. More than once. His depiction of his fictional philosopher/psychologist, if one could say he is, Robert Voor; is too be one of the most understood characters in ANY book I've read. Connecting with the pages in such a deep manner makes it feel real. I began my journey through the stories with the accompanied album playing. 10/10, not perfect, because perfect is boring.
Read
March 24, 2024What is now, has been always
What has been, will always be
What has been, will always be
April 19, 2020
I've been listening to the accompanying album non-stop over the past two days, and my friend sent me this book that goes along with it. It's a very creepy series of writings over beliefs about the afterlife and suicide, most of which are fictional I'm pretty sure. Overall, it's a great companion piece to a phenomenal record.
November 15, 2023
EDIT 2023: Shortly after I read this the first time, The Flenser released a limited run reissue of the vinyl that included a physical copy of this book. When I initially read it, it was on a PDF document that was included as part of the Bandcamp digital purchase, but this second time was with the physical book itself. I cannot say for sure if the original version was printed in the same standard/cheapish quality (the Enemies List LP came in a beautiful box set that included the book, but The Flenser gave me the record and the book as separate items), but the layout of the book's interior is well thought out. It's clear Dan Barrett put a lot of care into his book, and I appreciated it all the more because of it. Definitely a better experience than the endless scroll of a PDF file.
ORIGINAL 2018 REVIEW:
In an age where storytelling is becoming increasingly more nihilistic, absurd, and innovative, the definition of "the novel" has blurred, evolved, and expanded more rapidly in the past few decades than it has in its entire 400-ish year history. So it doesn't seem weird to me at all that a novel can simply be what seems little more than a supplement to a concept album about one of early American history's most morbid executions. In what reads like a Borges short story, Dan Barrett weaves a short biographic essay about a fictional cult leader (Robert Voor) with creepy photoshopped pictures and bursts of poetry, to make an eerie, beautifully rendered monument to his own dissolving sanity in his not-so-distant past. What this ultimately amounts to is a 150-page lover letter to his depression & attempted suicide.
Like the best of Borges' essays, no clear answers as to why we're reading about this cult leader, nor as to the narrator's purpose in telling us, are never really offered. But that's not the point of the novel. As you read, you become so enthralled in the narrative and narration that it's more like observing Barrett's own lucid nightmare than it is reading a book with a plot and story arc. (Barrett himself is actually versed in the processes of EVPs & lucid dreaming, and has even released an album designed to help induce the state of mind.)
The concept of Robert Voor as a man with frenetic followers is so fleshed out that I would not have doubted he actually existed if I didn't know better. The design of the Voor's Head Device, too, is so specific that I wouldn't be surprised if Barrett had made one for himself. It works not only as a believable cultish tool to achieve false enlightenment, but it's a tangible metaphor for depression in the 21st century as well. A plastic bag with a mouth-sized hole inside a cloth sack, placed over one's head to induce shortness of breath, loss of vision, and lightness of being? That sounds like depression to me.
The novel, though, is more than just a supplement thrown in with the album of the same name; it acts as a way to fuller understand the album itself. The Giles Corey LP is an unnervingly brilliant album unto itself, but the book acts as a key to unlock the deeper meanings behind the cryptic song titles, layered screams, radio broadcasts, and hauntingly sparse instrumentals. The text allows the listener to transcend the chaotic sense of ever-increasing dread while still headbanging along.
I keep returning to the last chapter of the book in my mind, where a short recounting of Giles Corey's execution is given to us and we're posited the implications of his decision to be slowly crushed to death in front of his peers. That instead of a quick, relatively painless death by hanging, he chose instead to force his loved ones and neighbors to watch him suffer and hear his screams of agony. The narrator lingers on this desire to punish them in his dying moments, just as they have wrongly punished him. But I'd like to propose that there's more here: perhaps Corey didn't just want to torture his community; perhaps he also felt that he deserved a slow, agonizing death. Perhaps he wanted it that way. Needed it. Is that too far off from how most of us aware of the the Gaol feel? We relish the physical pain, because it masks the emotional one, and it ends with the beautiful destruction of ourselves.
ORIGINAL 2018 REVIEW:
In an age where storytelling is becoming increasingly more nihilistic, absurd, and innovative, the definition of "the novel" has blurred, evolved, and expanded more rapidly in the past few decades than it has in its entire 400-ish year history. So it doesn't seem weird to me at all that a novel can simply be what seems little more than a supplement to a concept album about one of early American history's most morbid executions. In what reads like a Borges short story, Dan Barrett weaves a short biographic essay about a fictional cult leader (Robert Voor) with creepy photoshopped pictures and bursts of poetry, to make an eerie, beautifully rendered monument to his own dissolving sanity in his not-so-distant past. What this ultimately amounts to is a 150-page lover letter to his depression & attempted suicide.
Like the best of Borges' essays, no clear answers as to why we're reading about this cult leader, nor as to the narrator's purpose in telling us, are never really offered. But that's not the point of the novel. As you read, you become so enthralled in the narrative and narration that it's more like observing Barrett's own lucid nightmare than it is reading a book with a plot and story arc. (Barrett himself is actually versed in the processes of EVPs & lucid dreaming, and has even released an album designed to help induce the state of mind.)
The concept of Robert Voor as a man with frenetic followers is so fleshed out that I would not have doubted he actually existed if I didn't know better. The design of the Voor's Head Device, too, is so specific that I wouldn't be surprised if Barrett had made one for himself. It works not only as a believable cultish tool to achieve false enlightenment, but it's a tangible metaphor for depression in the 21st century as well. A plastic bag with a mouth-sized hole inside a cloth sack, placed over one's head to induce shortness of breath, loss of vision, and lightness of being? That sounds like depression to me.
The novel, though, is more than just a supplement thrown in with the album of the same name; it acts as a way to fuller understand the album itself. The Giles Corey LP is an unnervingly brilliant album unto itself, but the book acts as a key to unlock the deeper meanings behind the cryptic song titles, layered screams, radio broadcasts, and hauntingly sparse instrumentals. The text allows the listener to transcend the chaotic sense of ever-increasing dread while still headbanging along.
I keep returning to the last chapter of the book in my mind, where a short recounting of Giles Corey's execution is given to us and we're posited the implications of his decision to be slowly crushed to death in front of his peers. That instead of a quick, relatively painless death by hanging, he chose instead to force his loved ones and neighbors to watch him suffer and hear his screams of agony. The narrator lingers on this desire to punish them in his dying moments, just as they have wrongly punished him. But I'd like to propose that there's more here: perhaps Corey didn't just want to torture his community; perhaps he also felt that he deserved a slow, agonizing death. Perhaps he wanted it that way. Needed it. Is that too far off from how most of us aware of the the Gaol feel? We relish the physical pain, because it masks the emotional one, and it ends with the beautiful destruction of ourselves.
January 4, 2022
8.7/10
I open up my heart
And stick my fingers in
But you will never want
What I have to give
And it hasn't been easy on you
I know that more than most
I am born to be alone
I am just some lonely ghost
I open up my heart
And stick my fingers in
But you will never want
What I have to give
And it hasn't been easy on you
I know that more than most
I am born to be alone
I am just some lonely ghost
December 6, 2019
The album this is written for physically feels like a voice in your ear whispering evil things, while you roll around in your sleep frantically trying to wake up. It’s the feeling of breathing without air coming out of your mouth, of feeling every bit of blood moving under your skin, a little too warm for comfort.
Basically, it’s this great sonic journey into the absolute darkest part of depression, and the book accompanies this ride by throwing in the story of a fictional cult leader who talks about navigating a life after death, and possibly communicating with spirits. House of Leaves opened my eyes to a great variety of ways that ghosts can be interpreted, and this takes the idea of the ghost/spirits to its possibly saddest conclusion. It’s a ghost story for the depressed, one where the sheer weight of its implications drags the writer down into an unintelligible hellhole, the likes of which Lars Von Trier has been desperately trying to depict for his entire career.
It’s not a story or novel in the traditional sense, in the end it’s a companion to an album that Wikipedia describes as “dark folk”, and a way for an already dense and complicated piece of art to become even more morbid and ideologically challenging. But if you are willing to take the ride, it’s a distinctive option amongst the wide ways of handling depression, just facing the demons head on. When you are everything you hate in your life, it seems like the right thing to do is kill yourself. But maybe your Self is the thing that needs killing, not you.
Tl;DR Giles Corey told you to “let the past die, kill it if you have to” way before Last Jedi, and it’s a very odd world where I can easily connect the Salem witch trials, EVPs, Star Wars, and depression from a ebook/album on bandcamp.
Basically, it’s this great sonic journey into the absolute darkest part of depression, and the book accompanies this ride by throwing in the story of a fictional cult leader who talks about navigating a life after death, and possibly communicating with spirits. House of Leaves opened my eyes to a great variety of ways that ghosts can be interpreted, and this takes the idea of the ghost/spirits to its possibly saddest conclusion. It’s a ghost story for the depressed, one where the sheer weight of its implications drags the writer down into an unintelligible hellhole, the likes of which Lars Von Trier has been desperately trying to depict for his entire career.
It’s not a story or novel in the traditional sense, in the end it’s a companion to an album that Wikipedia describes as “dark folk”, and a way for an already dense and complicated piece of art to become even more morbid and ideologically challenging. But if you are willing to take the ride, it’s a distinctive option amongst the wide ways of handling depression, just facing the demons head on. When you are everything you hate in your life, it seems like the right thing to do is kill yourself. But maybe your Self is the thing that needs killing, not you.
Tl;DR Giles Corey told you to “let the past die, kill it if you have to” way before Last Jedi, and it’s a very odd world where I can easily connect the Salem witch trials, EVPs, Star Wars, and depression from a ebook/album on bandcamp.
August 18, 2018
"If I did not wish to be alive, did I wish to be dead?"
Another novella accompanying an album by the artist behind Have a Nice Life, this one for his side project Giles Corey. Similarly dark, the album is more folk.
The novella itself is part autobiographical part historical fiction, also following the leader of a cult and how it/he influenced the writer. I'll come back and write more later, my original review accidentally got deleted.
Another novella accompanying an album by the artist behind Have a Nice Life, this one for his side project Giles Corey. Similarly dark, the album is more folk.
The novella itself is part autobiographical part historical fiction, also following the leader of a cult and how it/he influenced the writer. I'll come back and write more later, my original review accidentally got deleted.
November 18, 2020
"And I move. I breathe. I crease my forehead. Grit my teeth. Stretch my legs. Feel my arms. Feel my ribs. Feel my body. I hold my hands in front of me. I turn one over; they are covered in grass; they are smeared with dirt, and blood; I read the lines in my palm. It is my self. It is my servant. It is not who I am. I am who it is.
And I am crushed. Utterly crushed.
And then, I get up."
And I am crushed. Utterly crushed.
And then, I get up."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 17, 2025
A beautiful book about depression and suicidal ideation. Listening to the album along with it is one of the most emotional pieces of art you can ever experience. It bounces between both Dan Barrett’s own struggles and Robert Voors. Dan is not traditionally an author but the emotion he expresses in this reading is really haunting and powerful. Thank you.
May 15, 2021
I almost feel bad for liking this almost as much as I do. I don't particularly love the album, and the occult flavouring makes the writing come off as a bit cheesy, but the two together combine to form an experience I enjoy quite a deal.
March 9, 2024
possibly the most inspiring thing i've read in the last few years, if not ever. this connected with me in more ways than one and i can't stop thinking about scott singer. dan barrett is an incredible artist and i will never not love him.
July 10, 2024
returned to this because i had a long morning commute & felt it might be relevant to some of my current projects (not like that, don’t panic). the mixture of archive-work, metafiction & raw uncomfortable intimacy it just as compelling now as when i first encountered it over a decade ago.
May 15, 2020
A longer 'we wish we were dead', but with a more personal touch. Dan does it again!
October 20, 2022
Alt blir så mye lettere i sinnet mitt når jeg har dette albumet
January 18, 2023
of sadness forever
June 6, 2023
I also want to glimpse death while being alive
September 26, 2023
I am not dead, I am only asleep
June 28, 2024
possibly my favorite thing related to dan barrett, love everything about this, it’s haunting and full of anger and sadness
October 29, 2024
5/5 while listening to the accompanied record.
December 18, 2022
Incredibly powerful, especially while listening to the accompanying LP. Dan is a hell of a writer.
October 10, 2022
Мне спадабалася значна меньш чым Deathconsciousness буклет.
Па адчуванням гэтая кніга выглядае больш прэтэнцыёзнай, што ў некаторым сэнсе адштурхнула.
Тым не менш усім раю прачытаць -- яна невялікая ды вельмі атмасферная! Быццам цукерку з'еў.
Па адчуванням гэтая кніга выглядае больш прэтэнцыёзнай, што ў некаторым сэнсе адштурхнула.
Тым не менш усім раю прачытаць -- яна невялікая ды вельмі атмасферная! Быццам цукерку з'еў.
October 30, 2023
i don’t even know where to start with this book and album… i have the last chapter printed out and stuck to the closet door in my room. the album really changed me, i genuinely feel like i know dan, like him and i are the same, especially with the songs “blackest bile” and “spectral bride”. him writing about almost killing himself was so jarring, i’ve never seen someone talk about it so openly.
August 30, 2020
Jesus christ. I have no words; there were parts of this that genuinely disturbed me, others cut through me like a knife, some echoed and resurrected within me feelings and thoughts that used to haunt me in my darkest moments. Despite that I'm certain I'll be coming back to this, because it is one of the strangest and most captivating things I've ever read and Dan Barrett is not only a brilliant musician, but a fantastic writer as well. I've been listening to the album for months before reading this, knowing it incorporates themes of ghosts, death, and Dan Barrett's own suicide attempt, but listening to it know will be a whole new experience.
March 12, 2024
Mostly read this depressing book on a return train trip in Taiwan, passing through forgotten villages fallen into disrepair. Have a nice life.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews