Fonolith

@fonolith.bsky.social

362 Followers 33 Following

"The home of high concept, retrofuturist darksynth." - The Wire Cassette/vinyl/digital since 2016. https://fonolith.bandcamp.com

If you're in West Yorkshire in need of something to do, why not wander through the well- preserved walls of the town's historic castle or explore the rugged beauty of Frickley Park? Alternatively, you could visit the 1950s council house in Pontefract where a family were violently terrorised by a poltergeist called The Black Monk (or Fred to those who knew him). This is textbook territory for Blackpool musician Neil Scrivin's The Night Monitor project. In August 1966, the Pritchard family moved into 30 East Drive and the appearance of inexplicable dust deposits and green foam bubbling from the taps soon progressed to the slashing of family photographs and slapped faces. Scrivin largely avoids moments of overt violence - "Invisible Hands" and "A Study In Destructive Haunting" opt for subtle and sustained electronic dread, capturing the queasy internal terror of the victims. Doomlode 2, from another of Scrivin's aliases, displays no such restraint, immediately turning the nuclear fallout dial to 11. "Destroy Civilisation" drops snippets of chilling dialogue, possibly culled from public information films such as Protect And Survive, while martial synths march heavy boots over fire scorched land. In fact, the whole thing feels wind-whipped and bomb-charred - "Frozen Fire" and "Much Better Than A Human Being" don't so much suggest nuclear paranoia as grim, post-fallout dystopias.