Review
Frequently, pictures of electronic music artist Richard Bone in album liner notes always make him look so serious, even menacing. Yet knowing him personally, he s seldom been dour or somber... Bone s recordings many times mirror his sly sense of humor and unique friendliness. These aspects are exemplified by his trippy bouncing percolating beats as well his lively yet chilled-out explorations of integrating world fusion elements into his trademark jazz-tronica. While some of the tracks on Infinite Plastic Creation (such as Elastic Sahara which combines a funky collection of beats and jazzy hooks with a cinematic desert soundtrack sound, reverberate with this part of his musical persona, there is also a more subdued and serious side to this release as well. Infinite Plastic Creation is not all fun and games. Per a blurb on his website, the album was composed during a time of personal crisis and reflection, and the quieter pieces here do point toward a shift for Bone. For example, the opening Ryder Adrift could almost be described as sparse (if you enjoyed Bone s Tales from the Incantina or Indium, this track should definitely appeal to you). Various electronic textures and layers of sound flow over, around, and though one another and there is an almost melancholic feel to the song. Still, it s not like Infinite Plastic Creation is aiming to be a downer. Songs like Toward Amitaf could almost be from a Shadowfax album, with myriad ethno-tribal hand percussion beats and an underlying sense of the ancient. For those Bone fans who grooved to his releases like Ascensionism, Disorient and The Reality Temples (You Are) Essence of Diamond offers up a mid-tempo rhythm-infused blending of piano and synths with subtle hints of world beat via some sampled hand percussion along with sweeping orchestral strings. If you preferred the neo- cyber jazz of Coxa or Electropica, there s the shady slinky The Last Soul of Sophia Sinn and its sultry sensual marriage of sampled bodhran and moody piano. Where Stars Await You opens in a spacy drifting mood but soon becomes something more like slow-tempo electro-pop with 80s beats, haunting lead flute, and electronic textures in the background (comparisons might be the lounge-ier side of Jonn Serrie, e.g. Tingri or Lumia Nights). Kharmacom further develops Bone s fascination with older analog synths which began a few recordings back on Saiyuji. Male chorals and theremin warblings waft over several layers of ambient textures. The track that, for me, offers the most startling contrast to most of Bone s previous recordings... is the closing cut, Indiga, Once Again an almost nine-minute exploration of muted minimalism that could almost pass for Budd, Kevin Keller or James Johnson. Melancholic sparse piano wanders reflectively over a landscape of smoothly flowing synths. It s amazingly beautiful, carrying you along in its calm yet evocative wake, drawing you in and putting you under its spell of repose and pensiveness. Talk about a great way to end an album! Despite the somewhat split-personality nature of the music on Infinite Plastic Creation, it s definitely cohesive and never fragmented. Bone has too much of a musical signature for that to happen. Instead, the variety of music allows the listener to explore the nooks and crannies present over repeated playings. This is one album which will not wear out its welcome in a hurry. While I m sorry that Richard Bone had to go through some tough times before giving birth to this great recording, I hope he takes some solace in the knowledge that his pain and tribulation gave rise to a phoenix of sorts and what just may be his best music in years. --Bill Binkelman, New Age Reporter Magazine
Review
Here is a beautiful surprise. Without being completely pure Berlin School or progressive EM, Infinite Plastic Creation is an album intensely intelligent and immensely poetic. And yet, I had the mocking smile by reading the descriptive card of this last Richard Bone opus; there will be titles that will haunt the listener. How much true is this quotation! Delivering his emotions retained on Serene Life of Microbes, Richard Bone is offering 11 titles, all as tasty from one to another, with a liberating devotion. As if the author drew a line on a painful voyage. Ryder Adrift makes part of the titles where the ambient eyes from head to foot the bare skin emotions. Vaporous light fog with fine keys floating on dark modulations, tinted of limpid sound glares. Such movements, stuffed of a burst emotion can also be hear on the very beautiful Imperial Glide, a title of a dense melancholy, Kharmacom with its bewitching synthesized modulations which stand out in hypnotic loops and the closing track Indiga, Once Again where shadowy lilts interlace to a dreamy piano and a synth with wounded breaths. Richard Bone intelligently explores the beauties of a tribal world to enchanting harmonies. Like Toward Amitaf, Elastic Sahara and Father of Pearl where the tribal flutes awake a nature in look out. Rhythms are becoming more freshened with fine sequences percussions, like tablas style, and distance pipes which harmonizing to clannish beats on moulding orchestral arrangements. Where Stars Await you is a track of bursting sensitivity. Tempo is soft, on lunar breaths synth that is crossing a spangled road of ethereal harmonies to soft reverberations. A musical piece to sleep, dream and even cry. (You Are) Essence of Diamond is a pearl which hangs instantaneously with its soft and delicate techno approach beat, along a piano that s coiling with melodious eagerness. A languid synth flies over the movement, installing its violin strings of a languorously lover waves, as the caresses of a beloved one. A splendid track, maybe the best over all, with arrangements of great subtleties where haunting choirs are mixing to muscular orchestrations. After the very ambient Momentary Flux, The Last Soul of Sophia Sinn renews with this specific heaviness which overhangs Infinite Plastic Creation. The tempo is soft, but inviting, with an incoercible touch which attracts senses, on air out keys which are lost in a moulding synth. Richard Bone gives a work of most personal, which transcends the territories of a conventional EM to embrace the soft nuances of New Age on tribal rhythms of a tribe of forlorn. Bordering Steve Roach and Vangelis, Infinite Plastic Creation is a great, but great album. I love every single minute out of it. A great thanks to its author for sharing his feelings so brilliantly. Sylvain from Québec, Canada Guts Of Darkness: The French Website of Dark, Ambient & Experimental Music. September 2007 __________________________________________________ --Sylvain from Québec, Canada
