Blackpool label Fonolith is the home of high concept, retrofuturist darksynth. Founded and manned by producer Neil Scrivin, his childhood fascinations – technology, science and the paranormal – serve as his muses and are executed with a familiar set of synths that piece together to make ‘the Fonolith sound’. Each project of Scrivin’s is an individual character differentiated by their varied artwork, designed largely by Scrivin himself. The label’s Bandcamp page is a sweet shop for the eyes and continues to tribute artefacts from Scrivin’s adolescence: horror film VHS tapes; role-playing gamebooks; partwork magazines. This playlist is a smattering of Fonolith’s highlights.

The Night Monitor
“One Day I Saw the Sea Shake”

One thing Fonolith does well is a good title. Something to wake up the eyes and force the body to press play. The Night Monitor’s Spacemen Mystery Of The Terror Triangle does exactly this with an album title that sounds like an old horror B-movie. “One Day I Saw the Sea Shake” enhances that feel nominally and sonically, with synths that arouse curiosity and intensify mystery. The track is inspired by a quote from a regular witness to the paranormal, who looked out over St. Brides Bay in Pembrokeshire, South Wales and saw numerous UFOs flying into and out of the sea.

The Night Monitor
“Under The Greenwood Tree”

From one of the label’s newest releases, The Night Monitor’s Their Dark Dominion, “Under the Greenwood Tree” is a great example of the atmosphere that Scrivin can conjure. He describes the record as “the soundtrack to an imaginary documentary or TV series circa 1987”, and this little interlude radiates a familiar analogue glow, much like a fat screen TV in the dead of night. Swap Angelo Badalamenti’s recurring synth motifs in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks in place of this, and the effect would be one and the same.

Neil Scrivin
“Phenomena”

Twenty Years On Ben Nevis has a great piece of cover artwork, truly emblematic of the filmic aspirations of Scrivin. The album is based on the W T Kilgour book of the same name, which chronicled life in the Ben Nevis Observatory, located atop the UK’s tallest mountain. The experience was brutal, and I think the record does a good job of highlighting that as it grows more sour, starting with “Phenomena”. The way the keys wind down and misbehave here sounds as though the batteries are running low, and raises comparisons to Boards Of Canada.

Phono Ghosts
“Pink Teens”

Phono Ghosts is a more light-hearted project from the label, finding the purgatory between the dream world and the waking world, as well as tributing the magic of the cassette tape. Solar Dream Reel was Fonolith’s first release back in 2016, and “Pink Teens” is a standout for its swirling synth atmosphere, disco bass and ghostly vocal hits. It’s a happy medium between vaporwave and chillwave, and, similar to “Phenomena”, the pitch keeps changing as though the track is running through an old, busted cassette tape player.

Hyperlink Dream Sync
“Loyalty To Tech”

Hyperlink Dream Sync is a collaborative project between Scrivin and producer Sferro that diverts away from the usual aesthetic of the label. Rather than a focus on the 1970s and 80s, Hyperlink Dream Sync serve to represent the technologically-blossoming late 90s and early 2000s. Back when a Windows release would have people queuing up outside PC stores, everyone still used the phrase “World Wide Web” in full, and MiniDiscs were still in circulation (yes, this album was available on MiniDisc!). With the opening track “Loyalty To Tech” as the starting point, they channel this era with smoother, cascading synthwork and a degree of urgency, echoing the growing pace of the technological world.

Neil Scrivin
“Science Of The Concrete”

Following on from Tomorrow’s World, This Has No Longer Been The Future is Scrivin’s auditory exploration of Brutalist architecture, the Chernobyl disaster and Cold War fright. “Science Of The Concrete” falls into the first category and is less heavy on the ears, but still builds within the world with arcadey synthwave. Both the original album and this follow-up manage to give an authentic feel for what the 70s and 80s thought was the future by taking inspiration from the science programming of the era, and leaving the door open to interpretation on whether this future is a utopia or nuclear filled doomscape.

The Night Monitor
“Dance Of The Mince Pie Martians”

From the Night Monitor’s Perception Report EP series, “Dance Of The Mince Pie Martians” is based on a woman’s encounter with three small winged beings at her home in Rowley Regis (West Midlands, UK) in January 1979. The beings became known as the 'Mince Pie Martians' for how much they enjoyed the woman’s home baked mince pies, and the track has an underlying jolliness about it. There’s a Willy Wonka bubbliness that’s as present here as the Night Monitor’s usual darkness, and it raises a point – maybe these unexplained phenomena do not have to be viewed with such a threatening, disturbing lens. Maybe it’s just our fear of the unknown and compulsive need to find explanations fogging our view.

Read Nathan Evans's Unlimited Editions article on Fonolith in The Wire 459. Wire subscribers can also read the column via the online archive.