Ambient Music Guide
Review by Mike Watson
(2005)

THE SPECTRAL SHIPS
Richard Bone

As an exercise in atmosphere The Spectral Ships is exceptional, the first of two recordings Bone has done for iconic ambient label Hypnos. The nine tracks are all named after ghost ships of nautical folklore which would appear on the horizon at dusk or dawn. It's a work of eerie, lovely abstraction which non-rhythmic pieces that 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".

Reviewed by Mike Watson