The return of Jim O’Rourke’s Moikai imprint, after an interlude of two decades.
‘Threading together twelve distinct episodes into a flowing whole, Spectral Evolution alternates moments of airy instrumental interplay with dense sonic mass, breaking up the pieces based on chord changes with ambient ‘Spaces’. At points reduced to almost a whisper, at other moments Toral’s electronics wail, squelch, and squeak like David Tudor’s live-electronic rainforest. Similarly, his use of the guitar encompasses an enormous dynamic and textural range, from chiming chords to expansive drones, from crystal clarity to fuzzy grit: on the beautiful Your Goodbye, his filtered, distorted soloing recalls Loren Connors in its emotive depth and wandering melodic sensibility…
‘Spectral Evolution is the quintessential album of guitar music from Rafael Toral.’

‘Sidesteps the traditional logic of how to play a song, moving outside the framework with which one would expect a standard to be treated. Three decades ago, in the early years, 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 methodologies, remaining ‘in the tradition’, even as the elongated harmonies seem to alter time and — says Toral — ‘the chords become events on their own.’ At points, the long tones evoke the sacred ennui of liturgic music, the choir or the organ standing in for silent contemplation while rumbling the ground beneath our feet. In addition to Toral’s guitars, sine wave, feedback and bass guitar, each track features clarinet, tenor saxophone, flügelhorn, and flute, by turn. One of Toral’s self-made devices incorporates a theremin to modulate feedback melodies. The spring of the old pours through the new in an unstoppable flow.’