records > violence of discovery and calm of acceptance

Touch London, UK TO:48 (CD, 2001) Staubgold Berlin, Germany staub 17 (LP, 2001) Design: Jon Wozencroft Photography: Heitor Alvelos 1st 1000 CDs in special wallet - limited edition

tracks

Recorded between 1993 and 2000 at Noise Precision, Lisbon, Portugal.
Produced by Rafael Toral.


notes

This is Rafael Torals first album for Touch. The highly evocative intricate and subtle guitar drones are captured in the beautiful photography of Heitor Alvelos, a Portuguese artist, and in the artwork of Jon Wozencroft.

The background noise on track 10 is a recording of silence during a Space Shuttle mission real time webcast. All other sounds were released by electric guitars. The album was recorded between 1993 and 2000 and mastered at Noise Precision, Lisbon.

VDCA is a collection of ten small pieces crafted by Toral with extreme precision and care through the last seven years. Using guitars and analogue technology, it can be described as Toral's best work, embodying all the directions he explored in his previous critically acclaimed records, "Sound Mind Sound Body" [Moikai, USA], "Wave Field" [dexter’s cigar/drag city, USA] and "Aeriola Frequency" [Perdition Plastics, USA] but taking them into new dimensions.

reviews
for Japanese, Russian and Polish reviews, please go to Press page.

They come along nearly every other week: abstract solo-guitar records, full of electronic atmospheres, ambiguous tonality and titles like Measurement of Noise. But this album has a quality all its own: a gorgeous sensual timbre that hardly depends upon any conventional harmony, melody or pulse at all. The sound flows slowly from one grandiose texture to another. There's little of the violence promised by the title, other than the damage done to your preconceptions of what an electric guitar should sound like. The sustained opening of Quiet Mind sounds something like an enormous, distant choir; Optical Flow, for 12-string guitar, conjures the spectre of an underwater harp (or a child's musical bath toy). Toral crafted these electroacoustic miniatures between 1993 and 2000, using electric guitars and analogue technology. In his hands, the sonic debris customarily associated with distorted electric guitars is somehow rendered warm and comforting.

John L. Walters, The Guardian

Incontrato recentemente a Bologna dove si é esibito con l'ensemble "aperto" MIMEO, Rafael Toral rivela fin da subito simpatia, disponibilitá e una naturale pacatezza. Come le dieci tracce del nuovo cd su Touch che scodella anche un titolo assai intrigante. Violenza della scoperta e calma dell'accettazione é cosí il seguito ideale di "Wave Field" o di "Aeriola Frequency" i dischi piú minimali ed ambient del musicista portoghese. Cambia perù l'estensione e la durata dei brani. Dieci infatti sono inusualmente stavolta, come tenui acquarelli figli di una stessa tela fatta di delicate trame ambientali. Detto cosí potrebbe sembrare un disco di sensibile fragilitá. No, tutt'altro, la mano di Toral é decisa ed attenta, egli sparge con cura i suoi colori, le sue tinte chiaroscurali, senza sbavature. Con meticolositá e parsimonia le sue chitarre Roland G-707, Fender Jaguar, Ibanez Silver Bass, 12 string Danelectro, descrivono di volta in volta i brevi ed onirici paesaggi: Desirée, Measurement of Noise, Quiet Mind... sono piccole gemme raccolte e selezionate con cura negli ultimi sette anni. Semmai la loro brevitá ti impedisce di afferrarle prima del loro svanire.

Gino Dal Soler, Blow Up, Italia

Toral, on the other hand [as opposed to Fennesz - ed.], likes to serve splendor straight up. Once more the cover gives clues to what lies within; Heitor Alvelos's photographs blend images of trees, power lines, and the sky with vibrant colors and twisting shapes that result from manipulations of photographic processes. Likewise, while nearly all of the sounds on this record issue from electric guitars, they don't often sound like they did. The Lisbon-based sound painter works so much within the realm of signal processing that it's a shock when, half way through the album, he first strikes some recognizable notes on "Optical Flow." Not until the closing piece "Mixed States Uncoded" does melody overtake texture. But what gorgeous textures! "Desirée" resonates like the inside of a vast bowed wine glass, "Liberté" and "Energy Flow" drone like distant propeller-driven airplanes, and on "Quiet Mind" feedback mingles with sonorities so voice-like that they seem to issue from some celestial choir. So many artists aim for beauty and come up with mere prettiness; on "Violence Of Discovery And Calm Of Acceptance" Toral hits the target.

Bill Meyer, Signal to Noise 23, USA

For a number of years I have been enjoying the work of this Portugese guitarist Rafael Toral and found his work better and better with every new release. Highlight was the 'Aeriola Frequency' CD for Perdition Plastics, with it's two slowly evolving pieces of feedback, guitar and electronics. Sounds captured inside electrical systems, and automatically transformed. This new CD has ten tracks which sort of use the same ideas as developed on his previous CD's, but then in the context of a shorter piece. The power so far lies for me in the slow changes of his music, which of course is served best in a longer piece. Each piece uses just an electric guitar (except for one that also uses "the recording of silence during a Space Shuttle mission real time webcast"), but god knows how many effect box. Toral paints little pictures in sound, and if his previous releases were oil on canvas, this is sketches with pencil and paper. Usually fragile drone like music, that sets a certain atmosphere for a while and then moves on to the next one. 'Optical flow', the sixth track, is the first in which the guitar tinkles as a guitar. Delicate pieces and Toral succeeds well in doing his great things in a short context too. Beautiful stuff.

FdW, VITAL, The Netherlands

Even kennismaken? Rafael Toral is een jonge Portugese gitarist die daar aan het achtereind van Europa de fragielste soundscapes uit zijn gitaar tovert en er intussen een behoorlijke reputatie mee verwierf in de rest van de wereld. Mede onder de invloed van Brian Eno, Sonic Youth en My Bloody Valentine creÎert hij al vijftien jaar een unieke, experimentele geluidswereld. Toral werd enkele jaren geleden onder de arm genomen door Jim O'Rourke en kreeg meteen de kans om op het label van zijn mentor het door critici geprezen Sound Mind Sound Body uit te brengen. Nadien volgden nog Wave Field (op Dexter's Cigar/Drag City) en Aeriola Frequency (op Perdition Plastics). Toral werkte in de loop der jaren onder meer samen met John Zorn, Sonic Youth, Rhys Chatham en Phill Niblock. Hij maakt eveneens deel uit van MIMEO, het los/vast elektronisch collectief dat opgericht werd door Keith Rowe en onder meer Christian Fennesz, Peter Rehberg en Kaffe Matthews in zijn rangen telt. Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance verzamelt tien stukken die Toral de laatste zeven jaar met uiterste zorg en precisie componeerde. Net als Fennesz en O'Rourke gebruikt hij de gitaar in combinatie met analoge technologie als een complex instrument waar hij subtiele en intrigerende drones uit puurt en de meest onmogelijke geluiden uit haalt. Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance - wat een fantastische titel trouwens! - is zonder meer Toral's beste werk tot nu toe. Ook hier gebruikt hij weer alle technieken die hij op zijn vorige albums toepaste maar hier worden ze nog verder verfijnd. Het breekbare Mixed States Uncoded komt nog het meest in de buurt van een Fennesz track. De achtergrondgeluiden werden opgenomen tijdens de stilte van een real time webcast van een Space Shuttle missie. De eerste duizend exemplaren van Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance komen bovendien in een speciale uitgebreide cd-verpakking met een boekje met mooie foto's van zijn landgenoot Heitor Alvelos.

Peter Wullen, The Ticket, Belgian net

Rafael Toral's Wave Field (Moneyland, 1995) and Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance (Touch, 2001) are two of the most gorgeous records of guitar music made in the past decade - and part of their beauty derives from how far they venture from the familiar language of the guitar. To create the surging ambient soundscapes of Wave Field, the Lisbon-born Toral ran the signal from his instrument through a battery of equalizers, filters, and other electronic effects, generating vivid tonal colors that flow as inexorably as lava. On Violence he's refined and intensified this palette, assembling ten concise, vibrant new compositions from guitar textures that sometimes sound like bowed wineglasses, tolling bells, or the rumbling of distant jets.

Bill Meyer, Chicago Reader, USA

Packaged in an oversize sleeve with stunning imagery by photographer Heitor Alvelos (with art direction by Jon Wozencroft, of course), the latest CD by Portuguese artist Rafael Toral is a wonder to behold. Each of the ten tracks on this disc uses only the sounds from electric guitars (he catalogues them in the liner notes). Delicate shifts and shifting drones in each of these relatively short tracks create some wonderful atmospheres. Toral has an undeniable talent for creating self-contained moods and textures; each track is unique, developing in its own rhythm and direction, yet at the same time each carries Toral's singular voice. The guitar only rarely sounds like a guitar, as in "Optical Flow", or in the strumming of the closing piece "Mixed States Uncoded". Instead, Toral's art rests in the transformations of his sound source; roughness is transformed into gentility, a chord is transformed into a stunning drone. Silence and sound interact in these pieces to great effect; the listener treasures the continuous ebb and flow of this wondrous music. Highly recommended.

Richard di Santo, Incursion

Released simultaneously as an LP on Staubgold and a CD on Touch, Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance marked an effort toward accessibility for Rafael Toral without comprising his artistic integrity. The ten tracks are short, mostly three to five minutes long with one notable exception. The music follows a soothing mood, easy to get into on a superficial level, fascinating when studied more closely. Loops of aerial electric guitars produce ambient soundscapes retaining little connexions with their instrument of origin. A few delicate melodies are encrusted in some of these constructions (like on Liberté), simple lines reminiscent of Loren Mazzacane Connors, Biosphere, or even Fennesz' Endless Summer (released at about the same time). On the closing Mixed States Uncoded one finds a post-rockish lazy nostalgia that was quite impossible to imagine upon hearing the opener Désirée, a soundscape much closer to something that would come out of a metallic sound sculpture than an electric guitar.

All-Music Guide

Het uitgangspunt voor de composities van de Portugees Rafael Toral is balans zoeken door het herwerken van zijn improvisaties. Daarbij hanteert Toral al meer dan vijftien jaar zijn gitaar als elektronisch (studio) materiaal: hij focust niet op klassieke muziekeigenheden als de melodie of op het ritme, maar schenkt veeleer aandacht aan het schijnbaar onbelangrijke detail. De emotionele spanningsboog die een aangehouden snaarakkoord kan oproepen, bijvoorbeeld. Zijn elektrische gitaar bewerkt Toral met analoge elektronica, teneinde het geluid uit te puren en nog een stapje dichter bij de essentie van het geluid te treden. Met die techniek ‹ een gelijke aan die van senior Phill Niblock ‹ creÎert Toral sonore landschappen bestaande uit esoterische drones die geen enkel verband meer vertonen met de instrumenten waar ze aan ontsproten. Na een drietal albums en muzikale collaboraties met onder andere John Zorn, Christian Fennesz en Jim O'Rourke, trok Toral voor dit werk zeven jaar uit: Violence Of Discovery And Calm Of Acceptance zou zijn magnum opus moeten worden. De Portugees slaagt met brio: in de tussentijd verschenen werkstukken als het briljante Aeriola Frequency (1999) lijken nu slechts aanlopen voor deze langspeler. De eerste secondes van de opener Désirée, dicht op elkaar gestapelde geluidslagen, sleuren je meteen in een haast religieuze trance, een duik onder het wateroppervlak die steeds dieper gaat en intensifieert naarmate het album vordert. Na een half uur in de gewichtsloze duisternis te toeven, introduceert Toral in Liberté een voorzichtig akoestisch motief. Een ontlasting van korte duur: in de volgende track wordt Torals densiteit nog drukkender en krijgt het geÎxploreerde sonore oppervlak pijnlijk stekelige kantjes. Toral sluit in volmaakte schoonheid af met het naar zijn normen verrassend lichte Mixed States Uncoded: een cirkelende loop van gebroken noise waarover Toral zijn grootse gitaartalent opnieuw ten volle demonstreert.

Ive Stevenheydens, tijd cultuur, Belgium

As an album Violence Of Discovery And Calm Of Acceptance is a mix of understated guitar melodies, floating and minimal construction, within which we can hear the light vibrations of strings and the atmospheric impact of those. On the whole the piece give the impressions of being relatively short, keeping the feel of the tracks in check so that they express what they have to within controlled layers before moving on. Though with that there is a steady consistency that carries through that progression.

RVWR: PTR, remote induction, UK

Portugal's Rafael Toral makes music almost archetypically ambient: slow, shimmering drones that revolve around a single point; blurred bursts of light like a succession of dying starts; liquid electricity given flight. All the more impressive then that he ignores banks of synthesizers in favor of guitars and and oodles of delay. The ten tracks here sound marginally more dynamic than previous releases for Tomlab and Jim O'Rourke's Moikai, but that's not to say they are easy to grasp: like orbs of frozen energy, they melt and trickle through your fingers before you've had the chance to realise that your hands are empty. There's a radical simplicity here: you sense that Toral isn't forcing anything, just letting things exist as they are. Violence... is a breathtaking glimpse into the unadorned sphere of being.

Philip Sherburne, XLR8R, USA

Rafael Toral listed each guitar used to create each track on Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance in the liner notes, like the nerdiest of music-store nerds, but you'd barely know they were there most of the time if he hadn't. The Portuguese composer takes the prosaic instruments of rock conquest--from a Roland G-707 guitar synthesizer to a Fender Jaguar to a Danelectro 12-string--and feeds their signals into a variety of analog electronics and effects to create a series of ethereal drone pieces. The result is probably the most stunning and unlikely solo guitar album you will hear this or any other year.

Toral has released several sparse, slow-blooming guitar-and-effects minimalism epics, but Violence of Discovery is his finest recording, in part because he focuses his efforts on a more intimate scale. A track such as the opening "Desirée" might overwhelm and cause mental drift at album-side length; at three and a half minutes, its lush northern-lights shimmer envelopes you, ravishes you, and moves on. Still, this is, more than Toral's previous efforts, a guitar record. You can hear the contour and grain of actual straight-outta-the-amp feedback amid the shifting timbres on "Maersk Line" and "Liberté," and on the closing "Mixed States Uncoded," Toral unveils his biggest surprise to date. Picking his way through a tart and lovely chord progression like Jimi Hendrix lazing in the sun on heaven's back porch, he rides a gently oscillating tone and some random space noise into the would-be hit single which experimental electronic minimalism has never had.

Lee Gardner, Baltimore Citypaper.com

Like Keith Rowe and Christian Fennesz, Rafael Toral searches for new uncharted territories of sound with the electric guitar as his guide. Unlike his peers though, Toral tends to gravitate towards glacial sounds, bathing his guitar in layers of blurry glassy effects, hardly ever allowing a recognizable strum of a chord or pluck of a string to come through. Instead, his compositions open slightly, inviting you in to his world of suspended notes and frozen melodies.

The opening track "Desiree," is a delicate deep space exercise in restraint, calling to mind Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois's Apollo, their soundtrack for a documentary of the moon landing. Eventually guitars turn into space dust, microcosmic particles, and huge walls of tones and feedback that strain to hold together under the wait of the gravity of the stars. The feedback in turn gives way to low murmurs of melody, which in turn fall deeper into black holes of sound. The discovery and acceptance of the stars is a concern for Torral; track 10 has a recording of "silence during a Space Shuttle real time web cast." It reads like a imaginary soundtrack for the Challenger explosion, having the most recognizably "guitar" sounds on the LP; it wails mournfully in the silence, playing back or collecting memories of the event in a dream like slow motion.

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Fake Jazz, 2001 sep 14

Rafael Toral ist Gitarrist mit dem Ohr eines Klangkünstlers. Was besonders Leute wie Jim O'Rourke, Fennesz oder Thurston Moore an ihm schätzen. Kaum einem Musiker aus dem Avantgarde-Bereich gelingt es momentan mit einem einzigen Instrument, dessen Vokabular als so ausgeschöpft gilt, so reichhaltige Klangräume zu schaffen. Dabei ist "Violence of discovery and calm of acceptance" nicht mal ein typisches Toral-Album. Manchmal gelingt es ihm auch, die sinfonischen Spannungsbögen, wie man sie in verdichteter Form von My Bloody Valentine-Feedbacks kannte, zu layern und zeitversetzt wie in einem Hallraum zu epochaler Breite zu dehnen. Auf seinem neuen Album läßt Toral diese Kraft nach innen wirken. Seine hochkonzentrierte Klangforschung lebt von mikroskopischen Verschiebungen und kontemplativer Exegese des klanglichen Moments. Woran er arbeitet sind immer noch Drones, aber er ertastet ihre Materialität mit einer Feinfühligkeit, dass sie in seinen Händen wie filigrane, aber strukturell absolut klare Figuren scheinen. Blendend schön.

Andreas Busche, www.popkomm.de

Rafael Toral is one of a newer generation of experimental guitarists who strive to wrestle the last drops of possibility from an instrument from which so much diverse noise (never mind melody) has been extracted already that it's no wonder that the only really drastic step left to take is to deconstruct the whole thing digitally. So following in the string bends and preparations of the likes of Robert Hampson, Lee Renaldo, Jim O'Rourke, Derek Bailey and so on, Toral opts for the deceptively simple approach of making the guitar sing the body and neck electric.

Through ten tracks of uncurling analogue electronics and string-driven sounds, Violence Of Discovery and Calm Of Acceptance is crafted into an album of ambience which even manages to include the sound of amplified silence on a Space Shuttle mission launch webcast, a trick of which Eno would no doubt be proud. Tones and drones luxuriate without lounging or wafting into the realms of pomposity or self-indulgence - the feeling generated is more that Rafael Toral is actively listening to the sounds he's making as both an outsider and creator. Regardless of the truth or not of this impression, the end result is a disc which roams from the rising effects trails into the tightly-controlled diversion of feedback into rhythms and half-framed melodies and chords, plateauing in areas where the sounds become scratchily electrical rather than merely plain and simply electronic.

Tracks like "Mixed States Uncoded" bring to mind the better days of Flying Saucer Attack, conjouring an evocatively meditative quality from the guitars (and bass in this case) which inspires a gentle relaxation into the flow of the by-now uplifting music.

-Freq1C-

Semblant de rien c’est ici le cinquième disque de Rafael Toral qui finit par être chroniqué en ces pages. Sorti en 2001, ‘Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance’ comprend dix plages, dont l’enregistrement s’est intercalé entre 1993 et 2000.
Comme l’indiquent les notes de pochette, tous les sons sont issus de guitares électriques, mais longuement dérivés à travers des effets, boucles, amplis et pédales de telle manière qu’on ne se les représente quasi jamais plus directement. Seule exception, un background noise sur la plage terminale enregistré en direct durant le webcast d’une mission de navette spatiale.
Comparé aux autres disques, celui-ci est de prime abord moins enveloppant, moins basé sur de longues drones profondes et vibrantes, et du coup moins directement enivrant. Ca tient aussi au fait que la moyenne de durée des plages est moins longue que sur les autres albums et que le travail de structure des morceaux semble plus évolué. Il s’agit dans un sens ici moins de composer des soundscapes que d’établir de vrais morceaux.
On sent peut-être chez Toral une envie de ciseler un peu plus loin ses compositions, faire un pas de plus vers l’écriture et la structure et un autre de retrait envers l’improvisation libre. Ca désarçonne un instant puis il faut bien accepter de se pencher, approcher la tête de la surface de l’eau et s’offrir aux beautés contemplatives, capturées entre les fils de Rafael Toral.
Le propos reste plus aérien, éthéré et glacé que jamais et l’on reste bienheureusement toujours à mille lieux de toutes dérives ambient ou new wave, grâce à une rigueur d’écriture et de sélection d’ambiance, rares. ‘Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance’ semble tremper dans l’envie d’avoir voulu aller plus loin. A travers cela, Rafael Toral semble ici plus que jamais le lien imaginaire entre des gens comme Windy & Carl, Landing ou Yellow 6 d’un côté et de l’autre Kevin Drumm, Oren Ambarchi ou Fennesz. Quelque part un dénominateur commun mais surtout un pic himalayen intermédiaire, car plus que jamais il tient la dragée haute ici, défriche et nous emmène vers un autre part où l’on perd nos repères. 'Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance' est la réussite de quelque chose de différent pour Toral, la preuve qu’il est un réel talent et non pas seulement une recette appliquée.
Lancer le disque c’est comme démarrer une apnée. Il manque juste peut-être des sons de clochettes plus apparents à ‘Desirée’ pour en révéler toute la dimension bucolique. Des vapeurs de sons nous englobent, comme émis par de masses vibrantes, tournoyant en orbite autour d’elles-mêmes. Trois minutes trente très condensées où l’on se retrouve à la merci d’une foule d’esprits qui papillonnent autour de nous, curieux et inquiétants, mais qui finissent par nous laisser en paix, sans doute distraits par autre chose.
A la fois statique et planant, ‘Measurement of Noise’ reste plus fidèle à ce qu’on connaissait déjà de Toral, ces bourdonnements aériens et cette apparente sécurité qui nous mène à la somnolence et à la rêverie. On glisse alors vers un ‘Quiet Mind’ plus gazeux, aux nuages ouatés qui nous enveloppent.
D’une intro toute en basses, on glisse vers les fractures lissées, mais encore apparentes sous la surface translucide, de ‘Maersk Line’. Une sorte d’appel à l’oxygène, la remontée vers la surface d’une plongée en apnée. ‘Liberté’ s’écarte aussi quelques peu des compositions habituelles, par quelques grésillements, ondes radios perdues et réverbérées dans l’espace ou bouillonnements diffus comme ceux que l’on rencontre au bord des failles volcaniques océaniques. Une jolie composition dont on ne prend vraiment conscience de la consistance que dans sa seconde partie où tout se met en place.
Sur ‘Optical Flow’, Rafael Toral joue sur les cordes de sa guitare de telle manière qu’on pense presque à un piano électronique type Boards of Canada, cependant longuement réverbéré et passé au travers d’effets. Ca donne au morceau une petite allure de comptine légèrement psychédélique et des sonorités asiatiques, le tout couplé bien sûr à de profondes nappes sonores en drones. Le morceau s’éteint avec l’équivalent du son adouci de criquets.
Le thermomètre chute avec ‘Energy Nourish’ et on se retrouve à contempler en planeur des paysages gelés, recouverts de glace et de givre. Sur ‘Hay que trabajo me cuesta quererte como te quiero’, il retourne vers ses fixations de décollages tout en lenteur et longueurs, des pistes infinies, une vitesse qui augmente lentement, un horizon dégagé à 180°, une course onirique vers l’apesanteur et une certaine chaleur tropicale et euphorisante pour griser notre peur de perdre pied au sol. On se réveille soudainement, on vient de dormir debout quelque part, à attendre, assis au soleil, que quelque chose se passe.
A l’écoute de ‘We Are Getting Closer’, on peut encore trouver des lointains échos de My Bloody Valentine, dans la douceur des sons et via une sorte de mélodie sous-jacente, quasi complètement effacée et qu’on s’amuse presque à recréer. C’est un peu aussi comme terminer l’ascension d’une colline ou d’un sommet, sortir de la forêt pour atteindre un promontoire où s’offre à nous le paysage. Et ce dernier paysage c’est justement cette mélodie digne de Kevin Shields qui refait surface sur la très belle plage terminale, ‘Mixed States Uncoded’, la seule où l’on sent vraiment la guitare et où l’on distingue quelques notes à travers le maëlstrom de nappes. Le disque se termine ici sur son sommet.
De prime abord, ‘Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance’ semble moins accessible et évident que les disques précédents de Toral. Ceci est surtout du au plus grand nombre de plages et à leur moins grande durée ne facilitant pas la sensation de planer en continu. Néanmoins l’œuvre et le talent de Rafael Toral n’ont jamais parus aussi potentiellement larges qu’ici. Donc on ne saurait trop vous conseiller d’y faire un arrêt et on reste sur le qui-vive plus que jamais concernant la suite de sa discographie, histoire de contrôler ce que certaines graines en germination ici pourront donner à l’avenir.

Didier, matamore chronique (France)

Few means for a great end. Portuguese guitarist/sound engineer Rafael Toral takes out his canvas and again shows his chops as a looper/soundscaper in an excellent release, continuing his work on a road already paved with good records like “Wave field” and “Aeriola frequency”. Toral's timbres are so delicate and particular, they possess a beauty of their own; this musician achieves the not easy result of keeping your mind relaxed even when frequencies explored are far from smooth territories. Even then, sounds keep flowing naturally, like a sunset colour with just a little bit of electricity.

Massimo Ricci, touchingextremes.org

These 10 guitar-powered tracks from Rafael Toral waft on gentle waves of mutant feedback spirals. The Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance are explored with much emphasis on the latter by the Portuguese musician, producer and sound engineer.
Churning metallic radiance envelops Desirée in a lightly boiling fogbank; other tracks drift in similarly gasesous states, such as the thrumming sheen of Quiet Mind or the swirling layers of somewhat accordian-like ripples in Maersk Line .
Toral's 12-string Danelectro is heard in Optical Flow , with psychedelic little plucks and pings emitting from a molten core. Taking a turn into slightly darker territories, Energy Nourish purrs with a mechanical essence amid sweltering waves.
With a long name for a long track, Hay que trabajo me cuesta quererte como te quiero (8:55) bubbles with warmth and subtle weirdness. The beaming (sometimes rising/falling) flows of Mixed States Uncoded are ingrained with gritty smears of strumming (and interestingly, recorded "silence" during a space shuttle mission webcast).
In its 50-minutes course, the balance of Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance decidedly tips toward the calm rather than the violent... I had no trouble accepting Rafael Toral 's amorphous works of guitarart, discovering their enigmatic beauty to be an 8.5 floatation into a realm of relaxing abstraction.

David J Opdyke, AmbiEntrance July 31 , 2001

Rafael Toral's first album for Touch, 'Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance' was crafted over a seven year period between 1993 and 2000. It shows.
Barring "a recording of silence during a space shuttle mission real time webcast" on 'Mixed States Uncoded' Toral states that, "every sound was released by electric guitars". The result is one of the most beautiful guitar-generated albums you could possibly imagine.
'Violence of Discovery...' defies easy categorisation. As its gestation period doubtless indicates, it's much, much more than an album of guitar-generated drones. Toral's attention to detail and eye for subtlety is rarely matched and are qualities that set this release apart.
Opening with the massed glissando of 'Desiree' sets the scene perfectly. Dense clusters of harmonics - which deserve a pair of quality headphones - glisten across the space of four minutes of sustained harmonies before easing gently into the wonderfully titled and evocative 'Measurement of Noise'. 'We are Getting Closer' is four minutes of pure heaven - the rippling sounds of water lapping against a distant shore...
Closing with 'Mixed States Uncoded', is about as close to spine-tingling perfection as you could imagine. A slow grumble with high frequency counterpoint and a melody of sheer beauty, it unfolds slowly, but surely. A suggestion of beauty, wonderful.

Christopher Murphy, Fällt, 2003





Rafael Toral is a guitarist who lives at the end of the world... Well, Portugal to be exact. His ten beautiful solo guitar dronescapes might echo influences such as Sonic Youth, Jim O'Rourke, Eno and the minimalist composers but he gives his instrument a unique voice. Really he's up there alongside Robert Hampson and Christian Fennesz when it comes to new approaches to coaxing sublime sonic textures from that versatile six string thing. (...) Anyway, to describe Toral's magical flights as ambience would be to do them a great disservice, but this is underwater moonlight music to drift and dream to. Perhaps the drone word is a deceptive one to use here as well, since he does hit the strings softly and these chiming patterns continually shift and expand.

Crackedmachine




Le prolifique guitariste portugais Rafael Toral revient avec ce quatrième album, proposant dix divagations sonores illustrant parfaitement les différentes directions prises par son travail au cours de ses sept dernières années. Car plus que de "morceaux", "Violence..." renferme avant tout de courtes méditations. A l'aide de guitares et d'instruments analogiques, Toral parvient à infuser à sa musique un parfum océanique que l'on croyait définitivement perdu pour ce genre musical, à savoir le rock ambiant.
Ces compositions supportent d'ailleurs sans peine la comparaison avec les travaux de Robert Hampson (Main), Eno ou Fripp, tout s'en démarcant, ne serait-ce que par leur relation moins évidente à la sphère ambient. Ainsi, "Désirée" ouvre la voie tandis qu'à l'arrière-plan se joue une tragédie climatique, faite de micro-melodies emportées dans les vents chauds de drones aériens et de guitares contemplatives. Plus loin, un "Quiet Mind" apaisé propose un survol du Pacifique à l'intérieur d'une boulle d'air comprimé. Puis surgit la dépression, et l'auditeur assiste impuissant à son propre naufrage, se contemplant en train de sombrer dans les profondeurs abyssales, avant d'être ramené à la vie pour quelques minutes extatiques par des créatures inconnues émettant des sons cristalins, trésors mélodiques façonnés par de parcimonieuses notes de guitares. Et pour clore magistralement l'album, le spectre de My Bloody Valentine ytansparaît dans un horizon au ciel moins chergé, les grondements de jadis étant désormais lointains. A écouter rêveusement dans l'attente de pouvoir, un jour prochain, observer le sillage des avions, tout en étant étendu sur le fond de l'océan.
F. F., Octopus magazine