records > lullabies

Meeuw Muzak Amsterdam, Netherlands MM013 (white vynil 7", 1999)

tracks

The innovative Dutch label, Meeuw Muzak, responsible for a rather unusual catalogue of limited 7" emissions (e.g. Felix Kubin, Atsushi Tominaga, Mark Poysden), and who will also be releasing a CD of versions of the John Cage composition 4'33" in cooperation with Staalplaat in the not too distant future, commissioned this music from Rafael Toral, which I think convincingly displays many of the qualities of sound he seeks to reveal and express.

There are three tracks; two on 1 and one on 2 (which ends in a sweet locked groove, so you can listen to it all night). The first track, which sounds like an eccentric, gritty music box, emphasizes resonance. The plucked notes peal like small bells in a stone shell, and it ends with as a big a chord as a music box might manage. Then there's a gentle piece highly reminiscent of Robert Fripp & The League of Crafty Guitarists (on Valium). Small pings fall in random clusters like a gentle shower of metallic dust. The second side another exploration of reverberant space, warm and comforting with soft curling notes - a bit like David Cunningham's 'ext.night' (Piano Records, 1997), without the continuous blur produced by endless sustain. A sublime and quietly radiant triptych of brief moments in audibility.

This release is also limited to about 300 copies. (MP)

VITAL weekly