Five tracks had already been released as singles in the United Kingdom: "Bathroom Gurgle", "The Bears Are Coming", "Space and the Woods" and "Focker" as a double A-side, and "Heartbeat".

Fantasy Black Channel does not contain a unifying musical or lyrical theme; rather, it is a collage of all the ideas, genres, and studio effects that fascinated the band members and Alkan, especially during live recording sessions.

Having officially formed a band under the name Late of the Pier in 2004,[1] childhood friends Sam Eastgate, Andrew Faley, Sam Potter, and the late Ross Dawson initially developed the sound of their first album by listening to the alternative dance music of British ensemble The Prodigy and the grunge music of American band Nirvana.

[2] Late of the Pier started using the album working title Interesting Adventure in 2006 after practising in Eastgate's bedroom for about a year and previewed their new material at the Liars Club in Nottingham.

[7] Eastgate has claimed that the band members were influenced by the music of the 1980s during these formative stages of Fantasy Black Channel even though none of them were born before 1986.

[9] They tried unconventional techniques in the style of avant-garde producer Joe Meek during the live studio recording sessions, including stamping in baths and re-amping guitars through air vents.

[12] At the time, in an interview with the band, Stuart Turnbull of the BBC Collective indicated that Alkan managed to "channel Late of the Pier's sonic attack into something more focused yet still undeniably different".

[14] The band toured until the end of April 2008 to promote another single—a double A-side containing a reworked "Space and the Woods" and "Focker"—from the as-yet-unreleased Fantasy Black Channel.

[15] Studio work with Alkan restarted in May 2008 to put the finishing touches on the album; the final version was christened as "a compilation of hits" and "anti-pop pop".

The album was recorded during six months in different studios and the band members have admitted that the variety in venues partially explains why it sounds disjointed.

"Space and the Woods" tries to weigh up what is more important: a person or an inanimate object, or an absence of anything,[18] while "The Bears Are Coming" concerns "a silent threat".

"Broken" was conceived during a jam session between Eastgate's guitar riffs and Dawson's drumming, while a demo of "Space and the Woods" similar to the Nirvana song "All Apologies" was reworked and remixed in the studio.

Eastgate and Dawson wanted to create a track that evoked the idea of "coming out of the jungle" and credit varied musical acts like Slagsmålsklubben, Prince, The Beatles, Mr Flash, FrYars, and Lutricia McNeal as inspiration.

Once the instrumentals were recorded, the band members purposefully decided to mix their own playing lower in certain sections of the song so listeners could hear the horns more clearly.

"Mad Dogs and Englishmen", whose riff is based on an old French samba song, was borne out of an interplay between Eastgate on the guitar and Faley on the bass.

The last track on the album, "Bathroom Gurgle", includes "a squelchy grind of the riff" purpose-built for the Liars Club audience during the band's first ever gigs.

[18] Media response to Fantasy Black Channel was highly favourable; aggregating website Metacritic reports a normalised rating of 81% based on 18 critical reviews.

[19] AllMusic's K. Ross Hoffman described the album as "glorious and galvanising" and labelled it "a convoluted construction crammed with so many immediately gratifying moments that it takes multiple listens to extricate them all".

[20] John Burgess of The Guardian explained that a new favourite song, riff, or wayward moment can be found every time the album is listened to.

[4] Nick Mitchell of The Skinny pointed out that the record is "an unrestrained, unclassifiable, unexpectedly triumphant romp through blaring influences and genres, from the 70s camp rock of Queen and Bowie to the primitive electronics of Gary Numan, with echoes of 90s computer games and snatches of modern house".

[35] Earlier in 2008, Rory Carroll of Artrocker claimed that the record would have been a late entrant for the Mercury Music Prize, and would have probably won the award, if nominations had been made in August rather than July 2008.