Excerpt from the article featured in the May 2000 issue of Exposé Magazine

Richard Bone - "The Spectral Ships"
(hyp 1808, 1998)
Richard Bone - "Etherdome"
(hyp 1917, 1999)

      I'm not familiar with Bone's extensive discography, so I'm not able to put this in context with the his own label, Quirkworks Laboratory Discs. The originality of his approach to ambient music; however, can be seen in these recent titles on the Hypnos label. Bone's influences seem many, but much of the Spectral Ships is Eno-school ambient, featuring lots of warm piano sounds and a surreal melodic emphasis. Bone brings in a number of other aspects into the sound, including voice recordings, warm string synth patches, and the sounds of the abstractly eery. The tracks on Spectral Ships are named after ghost ships from legend, giving the album a wonderfully haunted feel, one that ranges from quite melodic and positive to the disturbingly fleeting. As an album, the entirety exudes a sound entirely Bone's own. Etherdome, Bone's newest, is possibly even more melodic than Spectral Ships. Compared to much of the Hypnos label, Etherdome seems positively sweet, but its darkest and most spacious moments, remind one of the last moments before falling asleep, where one consciousness slips into another. The music reminds one of Harold Budd and, again, Brian Eno; there are actually melodic and chord sequences in Bone's music, and several of these are in distinctly major keys. Bone's music is definitely the most accessible end of Hypnos' electronic spectrum, yet even with the drifty melodies and uplifting nature, his vision still includes the unusual, prevalent in the misty atmospheres that gently enfold his spacious themes.