Rafael Toral - Biography
Rafael Toral emerged as one of the most exciting experimental composers of the 1990s. Crafting a lush, carefully measured sound that incorporates elements of drone music, classical minimalism, improvisation, avant-rock and electronic ambient music, Toral released several records of utterly unique guitar music. He went on to collaborate with a who’s who of the avant-garde, including Phill Niblock, Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, Christian Fennesz, Jim O’Rourke, and Rhys Chatham. Recently moving away from the huge, shimmering wall of guitar drone he perfected in his early work, Toral has changed his method to a more performance based approach that seeks to meld electronic minimalism with the spontaneity of free-jazz.
Born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1967, Toral was interested in music at an early age. After an attempt to formally study music he quickly realized that his interests moved beyond the constraints of the teachings of conventional music. He began performing in 1984 in several bands, but soon Toral would focus on his solo explorations of guitar feedback systems. The earliest result of this is his first full-length record, Sound Mind Sound Body. Initially released on the tiny Portuguese AnAnAnA label in 1994, it was reissued to a much larger audience in 1999 by Jim O’Rourke’s Moikai imprint. Comprised of five tracks, three of which reach the fifteen to twenty minute mark, Toral sets forth his unique aesthetic. Mixing the gauzy feedback loops of My Bloody Valentine with the lush extended minimalism of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno’s collaborative work on No Pussyfooting, these pieces unfurl to reveal a world buzzing with dense harmonic activity.
The following year brought what is arguably Toral’s masterpiece. Wave Field was initially released on Portugal’s Moneyland Records but quickly gained the attention of musicians like Lee Ranaldo and Jim O’Rourke. O’Rourke’s Dexter’s Cigar label reissued the album in 1998. Two long pieces, essentially different takes on the same guitar feedback system, make up the bulk of the album with a third short track presented as a “radio edit” of the main pieces. The music here is a revelation. If you’ve ever been so mesmerized by a short My Bloody Valentine fuzz-loop interlude that you wanted it to last forever, look no further than Wave Field. Toral essentially uses classic drone minimalism as a structural hanger over which he drapes the glistening undulations of a Fender Jaguar guitar feeding back on itself. He then manipulates the feedback in real time with various effects. The results are utterly gorgeous; glossy strands of guitar tones that pulse, throb, glide, and hum endlessly, creating a super lush sonic field of all encompassing drone. It’s simply one of the best records of minimal music ever released.
1996 saw the release of Chasing Sonic Booms on Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace! label. The record features live recordings of collaborative performances with Jim O’Rourke, Manuel Mota, Jane Henry, and Waldo Riedl as well as two solo performances. Between 1996 and 1998, Toral’s profile rose substantially and he toured extensively in Europe, Japan, and North America. In ’98 he became a member of the improv supergroup MIMEO. Other members include Keith Rowe, Fennesz, Kaffe Matthews, Peter Rehberg, and Marcus Schmickler. Two records from No Noise Reduction, Toral’s duo with Joao Paulo Feliciano, were released during this period.
Toral released another stunning record of blissful drone with 1998’s Aeriola Frequency. Already moving away from the guitar, here the composer works with a system made up of two delays and an equalizer. The system has no actual sound source, instead allowing the delays to generate feedback loops over two lengthy tracks. The results are surprisingly dynamic. Toral’s electronic drones still reference the art-rock dynamics that his guitar-based music does, continuing to place his work outside any typical ambient sound. In 2000 Toral released a twenty-minute EP from the same sessions titled Cyclorama Lift 3.
2001 and 2002 brought compilations of early work on the Touch and Tomlab labels. Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance, released in 2001, features works recorded between 1993 and 2000 and features some of Toral’s most beguiling guitar based work presented in shorter form. This record might be the best place to enter Toral’s unique soundworld. 2002’s aptly titled Early Works is comprised of work recorded between 1987 and 1990 to 4-track cassette.
2002 also brought the next proper full-length, Electric Babyland/Lullabies, released on Tomlab. Ditching the guitar almost entirely, this record is sourced from what sounds to be music boxes and clattering metallic percussion. Clean, ringing bell-like tones are looped and processed, resulting in a free-form clatter that manages to be highly melodic. While the record lacks the focus of his early music, you can tell Toral is reaching for something new here.
While live releases and EPs would trickle out for the next few years on labels like Touch and Table of the Elements that featured Toral’s expansive drone sound, the composer was busy as early as 2003 in seeking a way to reinvent his approach to making music. Looking for a more active, performance friendly platform based on his love of free-jazz, Toral set out to incorporate electronic sound into a performance based setup. He launched the Space Program in 2003 around these ideas. Toral began to modify and invent electronic instruments in search of a tactile way of performing electronic music in a live setting. He created motion sensitive gloves that triggered computer generated sound, a joystick that controlled delay-based feedback systems, filters that react to light, and modified a theremin to control white noise generators. Seeing Toral perform this electronic music is like watching modern dance, his very moves affecting the sound. The first release of this method came in 2006. Space features three long tracks that are best described as electronic minimalist avant-jazz. Toral continues to explore this approach and has released Space Solo 1 in 2007, Space Elements Vol. 1 in 2008, and Space Elements Vol. II in 2010 on the Staubgold and Quecksilber labels. He is currently working on a large ensemble group based around his Space Program instruments.
