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SERENE LIFE OF MICROBES You might not believe this but Richard Bone used to be a synthpopper, you know. Yeah, it's true, he made a couple of albums (with vocals, even) before turning his hand to producing more atmospheric music, of which this fine album is the latest offering. The 9 tracks here prove that he certainly knows his stuff, using a variety of sounds that all manage to set such strong resonant atmospheres in a manner not totally dissimilar to Michael Stearns' Floating Whispers &, in a number of cases, perfectly evoking the subject title. 'Protozoa Mon Amour' (gotta love those titles!) is a good example of this as the swells of sound that form the music's basis seem to perfectly illustrate amoebae dividing & subdividing ad infinitum. Elsewhere both 'The Seduction Of Dr. Pasteur' & 'Thermatoga' both have a deeply sub-aqueous feel, by which I mean either would provide a perfect accompaniment to any sea-going programme, the dark mood of the latter piece being especially suggestive of the pitch black depths where those dead ugly Angler Fishes live. The deep swells that forms the tracks backbone are almost like the deep breathing of some huge underwater leviathan & this seems to be a regular feature of the album; the way that certain tracks seem to actually 'breathe'; the brighter 'Archea Apart' is another example of this while the album's highlights come in the form of two very different pieces, namely 'Autotrophic Light', where a cheeky little arpeggio is embellished by imaginative rhythmic effects, abstract tones & finished by cheeky little piano clusters to make the most immediately infectious track on the album-cheeky, that the only way to deacribe it while, on a totally different note, 'The Radiant Life' benefits from an irresistably dramatic & poignant feel that the massed strings provide, a full-on orchestra could hardly have done it any better & this is a piece to be savoured as the album enters its final straight which sees 'Going Dormant' closing the album on a much darker & more mysterious note with the abstract tones again providing an effective contrast to the more melodic elements. There's no doubt that Bone has got the ambient thing just right as, not only are the atmospheres he constructs so effective but accessable but, more importantly, each track has something unique to offer & it's this combination that makes this album the success it is. Mick Garlick |