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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 centered
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.