records > SPACE ELEMENTS VOL. I

	Staubgold Berlin, Germany Staubgold 90 (CD, 2008)
	Taiga Minneapolis, MN, USA TAIGA 3 (LP, 2008)

Personnel:
Rute Praça: violoncello (1).
César Burago: shakers, maracas, udu drums, clave (2); guiro (3); fiber blocks (5); timbalas, cowbells, cymbals (6).
David Toop: flute (3).
Sei Miguel: pocket trumpet (5).
Fala Mariam: alto trombone (5).
Margarida Garcia: electric double-bass (7).
Rafael Toral: glove-controlled computer sinewaves (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7); ribbon-controlled sinewave bursts (1, 3, 4, 6); modified MT-10 amplifier (2); analog modular synthesizer (3, 5, 6); delayed and filtered feedback empty circuit (4, 5, 6); amplified coil spring (3).

This is the first volume of the Space Program's Space Elements series. It is a series of releases each focused on one kind of instruments, on small settings and most often including collaborations, but sharing the same concerns of the program. The Space Program is a long-term work process launched in 2004, consisting on the quest for an approach to electronic music performance using a disciplined matrix of decision-making possibilities (and therefore not quite regarded as "improvisation"). Having found that jazz is the field of musical knowledge where disciplined decision-making is most developed, this music is more informed by jazz than by any other. The Space Program emphasizes articulating silence and sound, by structuring musical discourse on experimental instruments with a simple and clear sonic identity.
To my surprise i found no historical precedents to this practice, being that it draws practically no information from electronic music history (which is grounded on different thinking patterns), and it draws very little from jazz history as well, since the instruments i use are inadequate to play any music based on the Western system. I regard this approach to jazz (meaning a system of individual decision-making from the standpoint of free-spectrum live electronics) as a new and exciting field of creative possibilities. I called it "post-free jazz electronic music".

Rafael Toral, 2008


Produced by Rafael Toral.
Recorded during 2006 and 2007 at Noise Precision, The Percussion Workshop, João Paulo Feliciano's studio (Lisboa), Dave Hunt studio (London), and live at Tonic (New York), 2004, and Mousonturm (Frankfurt), 2007.
Mixed and mastered at Noise Precision, winter 2007.
Graphic design by NOTYPE (www.notype.net).
Typeface by Mário Feliciano: Stella, ©FTF 2000—2006.
Collage by João Paulo Feliciano: I Dream of Cities in Colours #3 (paper collage, 112 x 74 cm), courtesy of the artist and Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art.

reviews

Jazz, according to Rafael Toral, is 'a system of individual decision-making from the standpoint of free-spectrum live electronics', and since releasing 'Space' (see Vital Weekly 542), Total plays his own, and I must add, his own radical version of electronic jazz. On custom built electronic devices that is. So not a merge of electronics and jazz, but jazz on electronic devices. As announced back then, it was part of [the Space Program], in which he would play with others, but 'Space' was a solo record. Here however we get the first volume of 'Space Elements', which also sees players as Rute Praça (cello), Margarida Garcia (electric double bass), David Toop (flute) and Sei Miguel (pocket trumpet). They don't all appear together, but in various combinations, always along Toral's 'glove controlled computer sinewaves, ribbon-controlled sinewave bursts, modified MT-10 amplifier, analog modular synthesizer, delayed and filtered feedback empty circuit and amplified coil spring' - quite a mouthful. I am still not a lover of jazz, and prefer to make individual decisions on perhaps a totally different level, but the musical ground that is covered here is quite nice. The electronics sound utterly 'dry', i.e. without sound effects, computer plug ins or such like, while the other instruments restrict themselves to play also dry, clean and short sounds. This is indeed 'free' music, where each player makes his own decision, and as such its perhaps 'jazz', and again perhaps Toral's own term 'post-free jazz electronic music' covers the entire ground. Its music that goes without much precedent of the past, and surely marks something new. That by itself is a great effort, but the results are nice also! (FdW)
VITAL WEEKLY 651