Ambience - A Review by Mike Watson
(August 98)

THE SPECTRAL SHIPS
Richard Bone

     I remember one of the early films by veteran horror director John Carpenter called "The Fog". It was about ghosts from a wrecked ship returning to a seaside village during a mysterious fog to take revenge upon the unsuspecting inhabitants. The film was rich with atmosphere, the same kind of atmosphere evoked on this album from U.S. composer Richard Bone.

     The nine tracks are all named after actual ghost ships of nautical folklore, which would appear on the horizon at dusk or dawn. But to call the The Spectral Ships horror movie music would be crude, not to mention inaccurate. Bone's album is a work of eerie, lovely abstraction. These non-rhythmic pieces don't begin so much as evolve. A tentative piano melody appears out of a bed of droning synth chords and then vanishes. Electronic winds circle and envelop you. Sonar-like beeps guide you though a foggy landscape.

     Occasional voice samples are used to striking effect, notably on "The Serpentine Arcade" in which a staid British voice tells us that "the blessed in heaven will often walk to the battlements and look down and delight in the justice of God being properly carried out in hell". Eerie stuff indeed. But it won't hurt you...

Mike Watson