For years, Krissy Barker has been dreaming about houses. Some of the dreams are frightening. Others are not. All feature very specific dwellings that only exist in her dreams. “I’ll visit the same ones over and over and over again, sometimes multiple times in the same night,” the L.A.-based singer and drummer says on a video call. After so many somnial visits, Barker started turning those mysterious spaces into songs and, after forming Holy Sun Opera House with composer dl Salo, they became the basis for the project’s self-titled debut album, out now via Hologram Opera.
Holy Sun Opera House is gothic music in a way you wouldn’t expect for 2026. Barker and Salo- both classically trained musicians who met playing pinball and share a wide variety of non-classical influences- have made the kind of music you want to hear while you’re reading Rebecca or marathoning episodes of Dark Shadows. The album The Holy Sun Opera House is gothic in the sense that it gives you the impression of wandering through an old mansion on a stormy night, guided only by candlelight and unsure of what lies behind the doors you find.
Barker recalls having the first of these recurrent dreams after reading House of Leaves, the novel by Mark Z. Danielewski. “There’s a house and a family is living it and, one day, there’s a door and a room that just appeared,” she says of the novel. Despite her affinity for horror, Barker says, “That concept scared me so much. I started having my own dreams about it.”
She adds, “What I was dreaming was very different from the book and what I experienced in the room was very different than the book, but it was the same concept because it was so terrifying to me that everything is normal, everything is great and then there’s just a door and you open the door and there’s a whole room.”
Specifically, the dreams triggered by House of Leaves inspired the song “Room That Wasn’t There Before,” which brings together operatic vocals with a heavy atmospheric sound reminiscent of The Cure circa Faith. Other songs were inspired by different dreams and embody different vibes and points of reference. Some veer towards dark synths à la Black Celebration and Music for the Masses-era Depeche Mode. Other pieces flirt with new age and ambient music. Genre wasn’t something that was discussed when Barker and Salo began work on Holy Sun Opera House. “We talked more about the song meanings and the feelings that we were trying to get across,” says Baker. “A lot of the music elements were driven by feeling and what we were trying to convey. Sometimes, it was really heavy live drums. Sometimes, it was electronic drums. We talked a lot about imagery too. I think that’s why there are a lot of different genres represented on the album because it was all about capturing feelings.”
“The hardest thing is always when you post your music to Bandcamp or something like that and you have to come up with these genres,” says Salo. “I have the hardest time doing that. It doesn’t really conform to what you would imagine.”
Barker had already written some of the songs on her own, playing drums while singing and looping her own voice, when she asked Salo to collaborate. Initially, it was just the two of them performing on the album. As time went on though, they brought in more performers to fill out the sound. “We had done a few live shows, just the two of us, but we wanted to bring in a bigger element, especially a live element of singers and we started writing choir parts,” Salo explains. They soon added a synth bass player as well. With their record release show coming up at the end of May, they’ve also added a guitarist and trumpeter for a live band comprised of four people on instruments, plus an additional five singers.
At the time of this interview, the two were reworking some of the songs to work on stage. “We were actively trying out parts even a couple days ago, with everyone at the house,” says Salo. “We write parts and then just experiment with it live. I try to use little fake choir plugins to try it out, to see what it would sound like, but you really can’t tell until you get the whole group in the room to see what it actually sounds like.”
In the studio, as Barker and Salo worked out the songs, they tried to capture those rooms that Barker had dreamt. “She would explain a particular room in one of the houses, like the ‘Room with the Rain,’” Salo recalls, referencing the album’s closing song.
“‘Room with the Rain,’ that space is a space that brings up a lot of calming feelings. I love it. It’s such a beautiful space,” Barker says of the dream the song represents. “The only downside is that the room itself is raining. When I’m in that dream, I’m always thinking, I could still sleep here. I’ll be damp all the time, but I think that’s okay because it feels really good in here.”
Conversely, “The Attic” is inspired by a dream that sounds closer to a nightmare. “[It] is this maze-like house and every time I find the attic, it’s the most terrifying thing,” she says. That’s reflected in the song’s ominous sound.
Out of songs inspired by multiple dreams, Barker and Salo were able to make an album that sounds like one. It is a dream that lures listeners down darkened corridors and into unknown realms where either bliss or horror could be waiting. And, for Barker, Holy Sun Opera House’s debut does reflect her own dreams.“Singing these tracks and performing them,” she says, “I feel like these dreams are completely embodied.”
The self-titled debut from Holy Sun Opera House is out now and the band will play their record release show on May 29 at El Cid, with support from Lia Braswell and Pony Sweat.
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Follow on Instagram or sign up for the weekly, Beatique newsletter for updates on new stories and gigs.
Listen to the May 2026 edition of Beatique, featuring music from Sextile, Fcukers, Kneecap, Dry Cleaning, Fontaines D.C. and more.
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