After watching Lee Hardcastle’s latest music video for a second time, the song that it accompanied had effectively crawled inside my brain and buried itself deep within my subconscious. Think I might need a RyGo style headstomp to relieve me of this earworm because as it stands I’m listening to it a few times a day.

Beginning with an apocalyptic voiceover from horror legend John Carpenter, I was reminded of the director’s own fondness for synth music and how it played a crucial role in establishing the tone of his films. There is a simplicity to the structure which is built on throughout, adding layers and emotional depth – building suspense and paranoia.

Ennio Morricone’s score for The Thing creeps and induces anxiety in a much subtler way than Halloween, but there is a prominent style connecting both. My favourite theme of Carpenter’s though has to be Assault on Precinct 13. It has stayed with me from the first time I saw it when I was a youngun.

Considering Carps to have a link this retro synthwave music, I remember seeing that he is linked to Hardcastle too – offering him praise for his tribute to The Thing in ‘Thingu’: a comical and thoroughly detailed homage that utilises its own practical effects.

The claymation style and VHS theme of the music video lends a perfect aesthetic to the music, especially when lit with electric pink. The band responsible for the addictive noises are Gunship: formed from the non-Busted members of Fightstar, they released their debut album this year and have a few videos already that each provide their own visual style that mirrors the 80s nostalgia prevalent in the music.

Not particularly a fan of this genre, I cannot explain how this one track, the chorus alone, has commandeered my consciousness. That being said I am a big fan of the Drive score and soundtrack (analysed against themes of the film here) which appears to embody the same space.

Well anyways, here is a playlist that dances between some synthy tracks and some not-so that I’m listening to currently: