Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance

Up until this album, much of Portuguese guitarist Rafael Toral’s music had been about extended exploration (of guitar on Wave Field, or feedback systems on Aeriola Frequency); he’d also released a few CDs including improvised collaborations. But Violence of Discovery… was a different kind of statement for Toral, a collection of ten pieces marked by relative brevity, each exploring one idea for Toral’s set-up of guitar and FX; the simplicity of each piece still allows Toral to embrace subtle permutation, but the canvas isn’t as stretched. It’s an index of possibility, which makes sense, given it’s been assembled across a seven-year period in the mid-late ‘90s; somehow, it all coheres, reaching its apogee in the lovely, wistful guitar chords that ring out through the closing “Mixed States Uncoded” – imagine Fennesz and My Bloody Valentine collaborating on an elegiac pop-not-pop melody that dissolves as you hear it.