Space Quartet - Directions (April 19, 2021 clean feed records)

“Not to interrupt someone who is talking, is giving space. To stand aside and not in the doorway is creating space. To refrain from judging too fast is leaving space. We need space more than ever now. To back off. To slow down. To be quiet. Anything that happens in open space, happens in a more positive way. More vulnerable, hopefully more grounded.”

If you thought that Rafael Toral’s quartet was named after some reference to Sun Ra’s spatial jazz, here is the confirmation that there’s much more at stake than that, even if the many allusions to the Saturn envoy are also true. Space is the valorization of pauses, interstices, a certain measure of expression and narrative, a way to create transparencies and, most of all, a return to a human dimension, aware of its heart beating, its organic, silent thinking/ inner living of bodily functions. It’s in the air surrounding us and inside us.

Since his seminal “Space” (2006), Rafael Toral has been playing with custom electronic instruments paradoxically inadequate for jazz phrasing, but making of them, however, a vehicle for music as free as conceivably possible.

Powerfully propelled by the inventiveness and clarity of double-bassist Hugo Antunes, the cross-boundary, sharp drumming of Nuno Morão and the multi-language intelligence of alto saxophonist Nuno Torres, Toral’s electronic feedbacks are molded by a galaxy of things including noise, rock, ambient and electronic music, inspired by the thinking of “space” pioneers like Bill Dixon or Miles Davis. If, nowadays, there’s plenty of acoustic ensembles playing as if the conventional instruments were electronic, in “Directions” the approach goes inversely. It couldn’t be more defying.

1. Directions 10:37

2. Photonic Radiation 07:57

3. Southern Grooves 12:33

4. Such a hungry yearning burning inside of me 05:05

5. Moonlight through the pines 07:18

Rafael Toral acoustic and electronic feedback, amplifier, direction

Hugo Antunes double bass

Nuno Morão drums and percussion

Nuno Torres saxophone, electronics

All music by Toral, Antunes, Morão, Torres

Recorded at Scratch Built Studio on October 7, 2019 and March 8, 2020 by Nuno Morão on Noise Precision Mobile | Mixed and Mastered at Noise Precision Regada

Produced by Rafael Toral | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Cover design by Travassos

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Rafael Toral - Space Quartet (CLEAN FEED RECORDS 2018)

After the conclusion of the 13-year-long Space Program series, Space Quartet marks a new horizon in Rafael Toral’s ongoing music explorations. Referring both to a record and a band configuration, Space Quartet embodies a maturing moment for the Portuguese musician. As one of the most internationally-recognized figures in the leftfield domains of music, Toral describes the album as “an advanced application of the Space Program principles”: electronic music with a human touch.

Over the years, Toral developed a jazz-like phrasing using abstract electronics. Operating within the context of a typical quartet, Space Quartet features the interplay of two electronic voices, one played by himself, on melodic feedbacks and hacked amplifiers, and one by Ricardo Webbens, on modular synthesizer and other custom stuff; rounding out the quartet is the versatile Hugo Antunes on double bass and the inventive drums of João Pais Filipe, who also plays gongs and bells of his own making.

The electronics are the driving core of the ambitious Space Quartet, setting it apart from many examples of electronics in jazz. Inspired by some of the principles and methods of enigmatic master Sei Miguel, the music develops solely according to the musicians’ free decisions. The result is a sense of flux and ever-renewing forward motion, continuously unfolding into new places, through spirit and matter from jazz-rock to ambient music and “the singing of standards from another planet” (Toral dixit). One thing is for sure: you’ve never heard anything like this before.

I am very happy and excited about bringing you the newest stuff i've been working on. More than a new development, it's a whole other level. SPACE QUARTET's debut album has deeper roots and flies higher than anything i've done so far. Hugo Antunes (double bass), João Pais Filipe (drums) and Ricardo Webbens (modular synth and electronics) all performed amazingly into uncharted grounds. 

Clean Feed will be making sure it's available worldwide. It's a CD-only release, at least for now. 

Rafael Toral

1 Lisboa I 18:06

2 Porto 9:18

3 Coimbra 11:12

4 Lisboa II 0:36

Hugo Antunes  double bass

João Pais Filipe  drums and percussion

Ricardo Webbens  modular and network synthesizer (R)

Rafael Toral  modular feedback circuit, modified MS2 (feedback) and MT10 (bending) amplifiers (L). Direction

All compositions by Rafael Toral

Recorded by Noise Precision Mobile, at Estúdio 15A, Lisboa (1, 4), Sonoscopia, Porto (2), and Salão Brazil, Coimbra (3), November 2017

Produced by Rafael Toral | Mixed and mastered at Noise Precision Regada | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Art and design by João Paulo Feliciano