roughness is transformed into gentility, a chord is transformed into a stunning drone. Silence and sound interact in these pieces to great effect; the listener treasures the continuous ebb and flow of this wondrous music. Highly recommended.

On the closing Mixed States Uncoded one finds a post-rockish lazy nostalgia that was quite impossible to imagine upon hearing the opener Désirée, a soundscape much closer to something that would come out of a metallic sound sculpture than an electric guitar.

As an album Violence Of Discovery And Calm Of Acceptance is a mix of understated guitar melodies, floating and minimal construction, within which we can hear the light vibrations of strings and the atmospheric impact of those.

There’s a radical simplicity here: you sense that Toral isn’t forcing anything, just letting things exist as they are. Violence… is a breathtaking glimpse into the unadorned sphere of being.

Toral has released several sparse, slow-blooming guitar-and-effects minimalism epics, but Violence of Discovery is his finest recording, in part because he focuses his efforts on a more intimate scale.

Eventually guitars turn into space dust, microcosmic particles, and huge walls of tones and feedback that strain to hold together under the wait of the gravity of the stars.

the feeling generated is more that Rafael Toral is actively listening to the sounds he’s making as both an outsider and creator. Regardless of the truth or not of this impression, the end result is a disc which roams from the rising effects trails into the tightly-controlled diversion of feedback into rhythms and half-framed melodies and chords.

Toral’s timbres are so delicate and particular, they possess a beauty of their own; this musician achieves the not easy result of keeping your mind relaxed even when frequencies explored are far from smooth territories.

These 10 guitar-powered tracks from Rafael Toral waft on gentle waves of mutant feedback spirals. The Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance are explored with much emphasis on the latter by the Portuguese musician, producer and sound engineer. Churning metallic radiance envelops Desirée in a lightly boiling fogbank.

one of the most beautiful guitar-generated albums you could possibly imagine.