Electroshock Records - A Review by Julia Kozyreva
Dec. 27, 02

INDIUM
Richard Bone

     Indium is a soft viscid semi-metal, dissipated and scarce, perfectly reflective in all parts of the color spectrum. "Indium" has migrated into the name of the musical label created by Richard Bone that's specialized in ambient music. And just recently indium has been materialized at "Electroshock Records" studio in the form of an eponymous album of the American composer, a work which is expressive, rich in sonic hooks and with adjusted melodics.

     The "Indium" brings in the tranquility, although concealed by the seemingly static character and serenity is the flowing, changeable and the ever dynamically moving world. It is no artificial harmonic facade for the elemental interior, born by the creator's caprice. Not the impassive mask, hiding the dramatics and uncertainty of the world's confusion. The sound is a natural conclusion of multi-level and multi-directional processes, and it puts in order and imposes logic on the formless states of universal consciousness.

     The aesthetic part of Bone's creative work is a separate topic. His music is held together, spiritualized and made alive and independent of the caprice of time not by the aesthetics as such and not by the process of self-sufficing admiring. The music is born from the deeply intimate, personal feelings of the musician, uniting in one single organism the whole century-old experience of the humankind, cosmic intuition as well as earthly substance, hence the universal prime attitude that fills the compositions. The ungrained diamond of the unbelievable purity obtained via long and thorough search and processed in a filigree way is presented to the listener as the transfigurated image of a finished piece of art. The aesthetic principle is part of the being and the beauty lies in the deepest essence of the Universe, the role of a composer being its purification from everything that's fussy. The beauty is surfacing from within, it is dictated by the natural universal order. The delicate ability of hearing the world has allowed Richard Bone to realize this beauty in his music.

     Either these are Chinese bells, or the voices of ancient rituals, or the wind licking the surface of the steppe, something elusive doesn't let up for a moment when listening to this album. Refrain from any verbal or mental interpretations as they can destroy the delicate mystic of the music. Follow the sound, dissolve in it and drift with its peaceful flow. Experience the total calm, the unpredictability of currents, whirlpools and chutes.

Julia Kozyreva