FRICTION NYC

“Lisbon-based Rafael Toral has released a series of CDs that push the boundaries of musical genres as well as the limits of his instrument, establishing him as one of the most gifted and innovative guitarists of the decade.” – Bill Meyer, Chicago Reader (October 1996)

I finally received my copy of the Loveless 33 1/3 and ended up reading it in one sitting. Overall, it was a pretty great read, but I really like the way Mike McGonigal ended the book with a postscript discussing Rafael Toral’s Wave Field.

Wave Field was originally released in 1995 on Moneyland Records in Lisbon, Portugal and then reissued in the U.S. in 1998 on Dexter’s Cigar. The album marked Toral’s second release, after his 1994 debut, Sound Mind Sound Body.

As McGonigal states in his book, Wave Field was an “explicit homage” to My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, even right down to its cover which pictures a pink and red blurred close-up of a Fender Jaguar guitar. Even, the reddish font, all in lower case simply reading “rafael toral” is placed in the lower left hand corner of the cover, as it is on Loveless.

Just three tracks make up the album, starting with the 30 minute “Wave Field 5″, followed by “Wave Field 6,” which clocks in around 15 minutes. The third track, “WF Radio Edit” is a 3-minute edit combining the first two tracks. All of the soaring drones, noise, and effects on the album were created by Toral using a single Fender Jaguar guitar. I didn’t realize this because I only have mp3’s of the album, but apparently it came with instructions to be played “very soft or very loud,” which Toral explained as the “two faces” of the record in a 1998 interview with McGonigal. In the interview, Toral went onto say that “when it’s played loud it becomes something completely different: a very physical, hypnotizing wave of electronic drone that you feel around your body – like a river.” Turned down, which is the only way I’ve ever listened to it, the album is blissful, beautiful, and epic, more akin to the ambient work Brian Eno. It’s a great record to chill out with.

Muna Lusa has a nice four-part article about Toral, noting that Wave Field marked a turning point in his work, “from then on sound itself as the basic matter for all music, thus rendering his work unwriteable.”

Check out a sample of “Wave Field 6″ below. Toral’s most recent effort, Space, was released on Staubgold last year and unlike Wave Field, is widely available.

Rafael Toral  ”Wave Field 6″ (sample)