Rafael Toral - Spectral Evolution '2024

Tracks list

After a two-decade interlude, Jim O’Rourke’s Moikai returns with
Spectral Evolution, a major new work by Rafael Toral. Making his name in the
mid-1990s with influential guitar drone platters like "Sound Mind Sound Body"
and "Wave Field" (both reissued by Drag City in recent years), Toral has never
been one to rest on his laurels repeating his past glories. In the early years
of the 21st century, Toral laid the guitar aside, along with the focus on
extended tones that had defined much of his music until that point. He began his
‘Space Program’, a thirteen-year investigation of the performance
possibilities of an ever-expanding set of custom electronic instruments, played
with a fluid phrasing and rhythmic flexibility inspired by jazz. Dedicated to
honing his skills on these idiosyncratic instruments, Toral has performed with
them extensively both solo and in many collaborations, including in his Space
Quartet, where his mini-amplifier feedback integrates seamlessly into the
frontline of a classic post-free jazz quartet rounded out with saxophone, double
bass, and drums. Since 2017, Toral’s work has been entering a new phase,
often still centred around the arsenal of self-built instruments developed in
the Space Program, but with a renewed interest in the long tones and almost
static textures of his earlier work; he has also, after more than a decade,
returned to the electric guitar. Spectral Evolution is undoubtedly
Toral’s most sophisticated work to date, bringing together seemingly
incompatible threads from his entire career into a powerful new synthesis, both
wildly experimental and emotionally affecting. The record begins with a brief
‘Intro’ that sets the stage for the unique sound world explored
throughout the remainder of its duration: over sparkling clean guitar figures,
Toral stages a duet between two streams of modulated feedback, seeming less
electronic than like mutant takes on a muted trumpet and an ocarina. This segues
seamlessly into the stunning ‘Changes’, where a dense array of
Space instruments solo with wild abandon over a thick carpet of slowly moving
chords, growing increasingly chaotic over the course of eight minutes yet always
fastened to the lush harmonic foundation. On these and many other moments on the
record, Toral manages the almost miraculous feat of having his self-built
electronic instruments (which in the past he had seen as ‘inadequate to
play any music based on the Western system’) play in tune. In an
unexpected sidestep away from any of his previous work, the chord changes that
underpin many of the episodes on Spectral Evolution are derived from classic
jazz harmony, including takes on the archetypal Gershwin ‘Rhythm
changes’ and Ellington-Strayhorn’s ‘Take the “A”
Train’, albeit slowed to such an extent that each chord becomes a kind of
environment in its own right. Threading together twelve distinct episodes into a
flowing whole, "Spectral Evolution" alternates moments of airy instrumental
interplay with dense sonic mass, breaking up the pieces based on chord changes
with ambient ‘Spaces’. At points reduced to almost a whisper, at
other moments Toral’s electronics wail, squelch, and squeak like David
Tudor’s live-electronic rainforest. Similarly, his use of the guitar
encompasses an enormous dynamic and textural range, from chiming chords to
expansive drones, from crystal clarity to fuzzy grit: on the beautiful
‘Your Goodbye’, his filtered, distorted soloing recalls Loren
Connors in its emotive depth and wandering melodic sensibility. The product of
three years of experimentation and recording, and synthesizing the insights of
more than thirty years of musical research, "Spectral Evolution" is the
quintessential album of guitar music from Rafael Toral.



Tracklist:
1.01 - Rafael Toral - Spectral Evolution (47:14)

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