Portuguese experimental electronics player, guitarist, and multi-instrumentalist (and sound engineer) Rafael Toral began his musical career in the 1990s with a new form of electronic music that drew inspiration from art-rock, free jazz, ambient music, and minimalism, and by the early 2000s, shifted to his long-term project Space Program, that approached electronic music through the lens of silence, producing a music that is «melodic without notes, rhythmic with no beat, familiar but strange, meticulous but radically free». Toral’s recent phase, began in 2017 and still revolves around the arsenal of his self-built instruments developed in the Space Program, but with a renewed interest in long tones and almost static textures of his earlier work. Toral, after more than a decade, also returned to the electric guitar. He released two albums of Spectral Evolution, the debut, self-titled one and a live one (Moikai, 2024, and via his own label, Noise Percision Library, 2025).
Traveling Light distills the minimalist, experimental ambient vision of Spectral Evolution, shifting now from abstract forms to concrete compositions, radical interpretations of six iconic jazz standards. The electric guitar is the main instrument, but it is used as a sound generator, saturated with distorted, feedback, and noisy overtones. Furthermore, Toral radically expanded the space within the standards’ harmonies with his self-made electronics, while using the electric guitar to improvise on the original chord changes, but pushing these chords into «events on their own». He added subtle layers of choir voices, organ, loops, sine waves, and bass guitar, and with guests – clarinetist José Bruno Parrinha, tenor sax player Rodrigo Amado, flugelhorn player Yaw Tembe, and flutist Clara Saleiro (each one plays on one standard), to cement these interpretations in an orchestral sound. Toral recorded and mixed Traveling Light in his studio, Noise Precision, from 2022 to 2024.
These are surprising, disorienting interpretations. Without prior knowledge of Toral or of Traveling Light (which borrows the title of a famous song by Billie Holiday), the loose reflections of the sorely familiar chords changes sound almost as disruptive to the meditative-liturgical spirit of the album, like a toast to Earth cultures made on the alien terrain of Mars. But on repeated listening, Toral’s radical vision feels fresh and organic, and feels like a much-needed, sober echo of the concentric circling of music in time.
The standards – Ralf Rainger’s «Easy Living» (1937), Duke Ellington’s «(In My) Solitude» (1934), Johnny Green’s «Body and Soul» (1930), Gene de Paul’s «You Don’t Know What Love Is» (1941), Richard Rogers’ «My Funny Valentine» (1937), and Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr.’s «God Bless the Child» (1939) – are almost one hundred years old, almost as old as the invention of the electric guitar. It took almost a century to create such a distant but respectful perspective on these songs, with an unconventional role for the electric guitar playing them. Toral sidesteps the familiar comfort zone of how to play these songs and teaches us how to listen anew to these beautiful songs, with imagination, elegance, and grace.
Eyal Hareuveni
Rafael Toral (electric guitar, electronics, sine waves, organ, bass guitar), José Bruno Parrinha (clarinet), Rodrigo Amado (tenor saxophone), Yaw Tembe (flugelhorn), Clara Saleiro (flute)
