RAFAEL TORAL - Traveling Light

From out of the dark, the crackle of feed-
back birdsong signals a return to the land

of sound environments exclusive to the
music of Rafael Toral. A year and a half
after his epochal electric guitar album,
Spectral Evolution, Traveling Light finds
him sharpening his focus, moving boldly

from abstract forms to concrete composi-
tions in the form of a set of jazz standards.

Based on Toral's discography, this may
seem an unlikely endeavor, but happily,
Traveling Light transpires to be one of
the major accomplishments in his long
history, expressing these songs on their
own terms through the unique listening
lens of his music.
It's nearly a century since the innovation
that electrified the guitar, almost a century
since the era of songs like "Easy Living"
and "Body and Soul." Since then, guitars
and songs have been played hundreds
of different ways by thousands of diverse
individuals. After a century of progress,

they probably should sound like some-
thing else again! And they do, as Toral

sidesteps the traditional logic of how to play a song, moving outside the frame-
work with which one would expect a standard to be treated.

Three decades ago, in the early years of his practice, Toral used the guitar as
a generator, to create discreet texture and droning tones. Later, he abandoned
the guitar entirely, focusing on self-made electronics to render his music, and
the silence from which it came, with a post-free jazz perspective. For the music

of Spectral Evolution and Traveling Light, Toral has combined his methodolo-
gies, radically expanding the space within their harmonies with his self-made

machines, while engaging directly with his instrument and the chords of the
material. The result is a listening experience of these standards, that remains
"in the tradition," even as the elongated harmonies seem to alter time such
that, as Toral notes, "the chords become events on their own." At points, the
long tones animate the sacred ennui of liturgic music, the choir or the organ
standing in for silent contemplation while rumbling the ground beneath our
feet. Another echo of the concentric circling of music in time...
Further time-loops emerge throughout the duration of Traveling Light. In
addition to Toral's proxy orchestra of guitars, sine wave, feedback and bass
guitar, Traveling Light features the sounds of clarinetist Jos Bruno Parrinha,
tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, fl gelhorn player Yaw Tembe, flautist
Clara Saleiro, who each guest on one song. One of Toral's self-made devices
incorporates a theremin-another near-century old innovation in electronics
conceived for use in classical music-to modulate feedback melodies here.
Meanwhile, this altered space is visited by canonical jazz sounds on four tracks,

as clarinetist Jos Bruno Parrinha, tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, fl gel-
horn player Yaw Tembe and flautist Clara Saleiro each guest on one song. In

this new landscape, history and tradition are exemplified, like a toast to Earth
cultures made on the alien terrain of Mars.
In every contour of Traveling Light's path-arrangement, improvisation and
production-the spring of the old pours through the new in an unstoppable
flow. This is the sound of life, a nexus point for the music of the last century and
the music ever unfurling toward the far horizons of the next century.

Vinyl release of Rafael Toral - Traveling Light. Released through DRAG CITY and available on 2LP.