Solo Space explorations

Rafael Toral has developed, around 2004, a system to physically play experimental electronic instruments and has deeply explored creative possibilities in electronic music, in a project called Space Program. The music is full of paradoxes: melodic without notes, rhythmic without a beat, familiar but strange, meticulous but radically free. On stage, with a human, physical stance, he delivers music full of clarity and space, once described as “a brand of electronic music far more visceral and emotive than that of his cerebral peers”.

A performance by Rafael Toral is full of tension and unpredictability. The physicality and humanity of his music end up making it familiar, generating a strong empathy with the audience.

Electronic music performance is still too often somehow disconnected from the body, where musicians seem to be spiritually absent. It frequently lacks the movement, the warmth of the body in direct, physical relation with the instrument and the space.
I got to think of a way to play electronic music with an approach based on the musician, balancing intuition and discipline, as i noted to be common among jazz musicians.
Rafael Toral

 

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