After a two-decade interlude, Jim O’Rourke’s Moikai imprint returns with Spectral Evolution, a major new work by Rafael Toral. Undoubtedly Toral’s most sophisticated work to date, Spectral Evolution brings together seemingly incompatible threads from his entire career into a powerful new synthesis, both wildly experimental and emotionally affecting.
Making his name in the mid-1990s with influential guitar drone platters like Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field, Toral has never been one to rest on his laurels. In the early 21st century, Toral laid the guitar aside and 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. Since 2017, Toral’s work has entered into a new phase, developed in the ‘Space Program’, but returning the textural approach based in his electric guitar style.
The first cut is “Intro + Changes (excerpt)“, where jazzy guitar chords establish perfect languor, augmented and undercut by choice tones from Toral’s self-made “space” instruments, modulating into something akin to an orchestral arrangement, with tones of electronic feedback, extending the guitar’s intimate voice.
Spectral Evolution is out on February 23rd on LP, CD and digital. Pre-order your favourite format today!
