records > early works

Tomlab Köln, Germany tom19 (CD, 2002)

tracks:

(1 - 5) Recorded between 1987 and 1990 on 4-track cassette in Sesimbra and Lisboa, Portugal.

(6) Recorded in 1990 on 8-track open reel tape at Noise Precision, Lisboa. (Thanks to Nuno Rebelo). Sand Precision is a modular and fully scored piece for electric guitar, bass and prepared acoustic guitar

Cover: Early painting by Rafael Toral.

notes by rafael toral

Having completed Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance, i found myself drawing a continuous line going back in time some 15 years. These early pieces are at the other end of that line. At the time of recording them, i was far from dreaming i would ever release records at all. I found them of little value then, but under the light of all my following works, from Sound Mind Sound Body through Wave Field and Cyclorama Lift to Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance, they stand out as having paved the way for all this music.

Rafael Toral, December 2001

reviews

While I know nothing of Lisbon, and little of much of metropolitan Europe, it's reassuring to know that Rafael Toral has tenured in New York, and is likely informed by a visual fascination that the city, as spectacle, rightfully demands. Blinking, seething, spiraling, the textures and hues of light and material proceed from and sustain isolation, not so much as individual minutiae but as a conglomerate force that relegates non-visual capacities to the background and the viewer to a type of unilateral universe. Toral's compositions for guitar lay claim to a similar force of static, eternal motion, not so much music as an aural experience that proves trans-sensational. At such moments as his material unfolds, there may well be nothing beyond its purview, all light and circumstance consumed by its dense and pervasive scope.

A testimony to the premature triumphs of precocious genius, Early Works attains well to its documentary aspirations, tracing a lineage of development back 15 years from the guitarist's current endeavors. It would prove difficult to define progression and influence in a musician who moves fluidly from ambient to sonic improvisation, and the retrospective material here carries the same impressive development of recent releases, but provides nonetheless a sort of referential bookend. Early Works predates the drone aesthetic of Sound Mind Sound Body, while its precision in ambient soundscapes is not far removed from that defining last year's brilliant Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance.

In terms of diachronic achievement, Early Works carries the same timeless qualities as the best ambient recordings of the minimalist and electronic schools, bound less to technology than innovative process. I'm disinclined to characterize Toral's music as minimal because seldom is it austere; his dense loops ebb closely on the backs of one another in an ebullient pretense of renewal, and there is generally so great a variety of orchestrated sound as to sufficiently drown out the environmental remainder. He coaxes an atmospheric range from his guitar, touched by reverb, sustained drone, and digital processing, and to this adds flights of improvisation that are, like narcotics wrapped in Wonderbread pellets, deceptively simple, so flawlessly do they emerge from the bed of dense sound.

Staggering as it is to imagine a 20-year-old plotting this material out on 4-track cassette, the six tracks on the album lack the essential cohesion of Toral's more deliberate recordings. Early Works offers two perspectives, shifting decidedly from the shorter mood pieces of the first five songs to the improvised syncopation of "Sand Precision," a 16-minute exploration of guitar and bass interplay that leans closer to a Derek Bailey style of experimentation than the predominantly ambient material. This final opus, sparse in a style reminiscent of Toral's collaborative efforts, is close in sentiment to the improvisational meanderings overlaid on the sequenced material in the opening tracks. Particularly when layering upon harmonic guitar feedback, Toral has produced some of the most unapologetically beautiful recordings to emerge from the recent avant-garde set, and Early Works maintains his distinct position, somewhere amidst an experimental context shaded by brooding romanticism.

Tom Roberts, DustedMagazine (dustedmag.com)

Acclaimed Portuguese guitarist Toral has excavated private tapes dating from 1987 to 1990 to shed light on his later course of development. The shorter recordings are in the vein of Brian Eno's On Land and confirm Toral's skill as a shaper of moody Ambient vignettes. The concluding piece is very different: dry, spiky and pointillistic, apparently involving deliberate permutation and open to chance. Its faltering pace creates an odd kind of suspense.

The Wire

"Ambient Music [...] must be as ignorable as it is interesting". Ces mots célèbres de Brian Eno, Rafael Toral les avait peut-être déjà conservés dans un coin de sa mémoire, au moment de la gestation entre 1984 et 1986 de ses premiers travaux ambient. L'écoute de son dernier album, paru sur le label allemand Tomlab, pourrait en fournir la preuve. Early works réunit en effet six pièces pour guitare composées par le prodige portugais entre 1987 et 1990, soit près de quatre ans avant la sortie de son premier album solo (Sound mind sound body, Ananana, 1994, réédité sur Moikai, 1999). A la manière d'un tableau abstrait où chacun, selon la distance à laquelle il se trouve, découvrirait différentes clés de compréhension, Early works joue, fidèle aux préceptes de Brian Eno, sur les différentes nuances de perception de la musique (de l'écoute attentive à l'écoute flottante). Une "peinture de temps" en somme.

De facture naturellement plus rudimentaire que ses derniers travaux (notamment le magnifique Violence of discovery, calm of acceptance sur Touch, 2001), les six morceaux d'Early works retracent les contours encore hésitants de l'univers sonore du musicien, abreuvé d'Alvin Lucier, de John Cage, de Nuno Rebelo, de Sonic Youth, et bientôt sous l'emprise du guitarmageddon de Kevin Shields. Contours hésitants peut-être mais déjà posés. Car, comme le suggèrent les notes du livret de l'album, les prolégomènes de l'esthétique musicale de Rafael Toral étaient bel et bien à l'œuvre depuis ces tout premiers enregistrements analogiques : volonté d'explorer toutes les ressources de la guitare, approche fondée sur le son et non la mélodie (d'où ressort une conception de son instrument fétiche comme "générateur de sons").

A, B 2, C, B 1 et A VIII sont cinq morceaux à base de drones de tonalité plutôt sourde dans les graves (A, B 2), glaciales dans les aigus (B 1, dont la texture sonore me rappelle 5th Symphony, 1st movement de Glenn Branca). Au-dessus des masses liquéfiées de guitares, crépitent comme des flammèches, des sonorités vibratiles et inquiétantes. Parfois, des cerceaux de notes, échappés des masses grondantes, s'ouvrent et libèrent leur matière tournoyante qui vient se fondre dans les drones, comme la résolution de tensions en harmonies apaisées (B 2).

Sand precision relate quant à lui un autre aspect du jeu de Toral : cordes pincées, étouffées, caressées, frottées ou frappées au moyen de divers objets, notes suspendues, courtes, harmoniques…. Sand precision se révèle ainsi être un long monologue pour guitare électrique, reposant sur la rencontre fortuite de sonorités dissonantes et de textures contraires. Suggestif, le morceau avance selon des rythmes variables, des éclairs de beauté déchirant parfois le ciel étrange qu'il a construit.

En éditant Early works, Tomlab prend le risque de ne s'adresser qu'aux aficionados du guitariste portugais. Seulement, parce qu'il est plus qu'une anecdote discographique, mais le véritable manifeste musical d'un artiste majeur de ces dix dernières années, cet album devrait aiguiser la curiosité de mélomanes friands tant de flux sonores que d'improvisation guitaristique.

Maxime Guitton, Chronic'Art

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