Rafael Toral
Today we’re listening to Rafael Toral, a Portuguese electronic musician and guitarist from Lisbon. Born in 1967, as a teenager he joined a post-punk band and got into Brian Eno’s ideas about ambient music.1 In the ‘90s he started putting out his own music, and gravitated from guitar drones to improvisations with synths and other electronic instruments. We’re first playing his 2024 record, Spectral Evolution, which is one 47-minute track on which “squiggling electronics chatter like an android aviary,” to quote Pitchfork. That album made several best of 2024 lists including ours. We’re also playing his 1994 album, Sound Mind Sound Body, which got a “30th anniversary” release in 2018 as a nod to when Toral began recording the “guitar drone platters” that populate the record.2
Spectral Evolution - Rafael Toral (47m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal
Sound Mind Sound Body - Rafael Toral (78m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal
Have a great Thursday.
I’d never heard about Spectral Evolution. What an achievement to create an evolving, flowing piece that’s 45 minutes long. Thanks for the tip.
Spectral Evolution is one heck of an album.