ASTOUNDINGLY Beautiful Ambient Soundscapes: Rafael Toral interview
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- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
- This conversation between composers Rafael Toral and Samuel Andreyev was conducted on 25 March 2024.
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Have you heard Spectral Evolution yet? If so, let me know what you think!
Yes
It's so good!
It left me stunned when I first heard it. I've yet to fully comprehend it, but there's definitely something mystical happening there. It washes over me and compels me, even without my conscious understanding of what exactly is happening. Thank you for sharing this interview, and thank you for introducing me to Rafael's Music, Samuel 🙏❤
the o'rourke interview alerted me to it and i'm still blown away, now many listenings in. the rare experience of a record that answers musical questions i had but didn't know how to articulate. it delivers, in a heartful, generous way. if that weren't enough, there's even a ripping guitar solo near the end! sheesh. thanks for this interview!
I listened to it after hearing you mention it in a short with Jim O'Rourke. I listen mostly to experimental rock and pop music (with an idiosyncratic definition of 'experimental' that differs slightly from the one discussed in this video) and do not know or engage with the vast majority of the music you discuss on your channel. Spectral Evolution kicks ass. It reminds me of the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey when the apes are flipping out over the monolith. Different emotional valences to these moments, but they seem related to me in some way. Thanks for putting this on my radar!
Found this album through your conversation with Jim. Indescribably beautiful
same here, excellent!!
@@adriandemoc8076 Same here! Been through it over 10 times and it just keeps getting better and better...he tapped something in there that's just pure bliss
This man is one of the greatest musicians, composers, I like his music because his stuff is real and raw feelings and it’s like human’s emotions transform into sound. Very real and raw.
I agree. I listened to his music all day yesterday.
Thanks, Samuel for helping expose us to the music of people we otherwise might never hear of. This interview is greatly appreciated.
This is kinda legendary.
Obrigado pela música!
Amazing! Love Rafael Toral. I also discovered him years ago through his work with Jim.
Sound Mind Sound Body is an all time favorite of mine
I listened to the album the first time on a foggy night alone on top of the dam, the music scared me too much so I had to change it but I knew immediately it was a banger
Rafael! Big love from Chicago. Great interview!!!
bravo, love his music
Love participation in mão morta song
Amazing album honestly.
I had timestamped both sections and references to names of figures and works in a previous comment, but it seems CZcams won't allow it to be seen.
@@schizotypalcarrottry it again without using links (or maybe altering them?). CZcams automatically deletes comments with links to other sites :(
@@juankgonzalez6230 The only links included were those to the specific parts of this same video, so no direction to external sources. It is a bit of a waste, because I figure people would appreciate being able to quickly find passages of interest at the very least, but it is what it is.
Thank you for this marvelous discover!!
I saw the unedited version on Patreon but I'm watching it again because it's such an amazing interview!
Very interesting and well thought interview..
Greetings from Italy.
Been waiting for this! Thx Sam
I suspect that Nuno Canavarro and his miracle called Plux Quba (especially tracks like Untitled #7 with those chirping sounds) was a major inspiration for this.
Woah, Rafael is from Portugal, my country! I did not know about him! I recognized his accent!
● Timestamps:
[ 0:00 ] Introduction
[ 1:40 ] "Spectral Evolution" as sum of contrasting models
[ 6:30 ] "Experimental" as indeterminacy of results
[ 12:59 ] Influences behind the title "Spectral Evolution"
[ 16:03 ] Inspirations for the music of "Spectral Evolution"
[ 24:50 ] Techniques in "Spectral Evolution"
[ 31:50 ] Limits of notation
[ 45:14 ] Toral's music background
[ 53:54 ] Harmony in "Spectral Evolution"
[ 58:20 ] Self-taught musicianship
[ 1:09:12 ] Goals of Toral's music
[ 1:14:42 ] The Ideal listener
[ 1:19:45 ] Toral's self-made instruments
20 BPM... Es llevar los planos secuencia de Tarkovsky a la música. Que interesante Toral
Fantastic! Any way you can interview Georg Friedrich Haas? That's another person so many people learned about through Jim O'Rourke and his ESS interview with Ken Vandermark.
I’ll be, was just listening to the new lp and this arrives.
Major Tom found peace at last.
It could be the soundtrack to a film called "Lost Floating Alone in Space" or "Solaris" , with the usual cliché paradox that there is no sound in space but it’s hard to think of anything other than empty intersideral space when you hear this music :
- sounds with different kinds and superimpositions of slowed vibrations that emerge slowly, seem to float and evoke weightlessness. (The cosmonaut turns slowly on himself and the horizon of what he can see changes peacefully and slowly).
- sometimes somehow perturbed by short, unpredictable electronic noises that evoke parasites and interference.
It's rare, too, to be able to identify the source of such sounds - they're tampered with, but in a poetic way.
The guy sounds like a monk soldier of electronics, the kind to lock himself up in a cell for 10 years with a Theremin, a guitar and some gizmos - amps, oscillators, ..... - and come out with an ocean of his own universe, a world away from virtuosity, but only in the weaving of atmosphere (as far as you can speak of atmosphere in space).
It's the kind of album that, if you're in the right mood, makes for a unique dive.
I used to believe that the score is the actual piece and that the job of the performer is to give a perfect audio representation of the written score, but I don't believe that anymore. It is indeed like you say : if a score is the actual piece then a midi performance would do it justice. I also think that composers have limited their fantasy to fit a normal pleasant looking notation. In piano music, melodies are often in a higher register because it is less comfortable to notate melodies around middle C in normal piano notation. Nevermind more complex rhythms. Everyone who has ever tried to transcribe an average pop tune to the piano knows how inconvienent normal rhytmic notation is. It makes a score look insanely clumsy and complex. But to our modern ears (used to funky and jazzy grooves) it sounds just fine.
It’s his instincts
I am not a musician and I heard of this album through your short a few days ago. Perhaps my ear is just too dumb, but I also shared the album with a colleague at work who had the same impression. It is very unique and good in a sense, but there are many dissonant sounds which make it unpleasant to listen to.
Perhaps what sounds to me like a dissonant sound might just be the most sophisticated harmony, but then it just floats above my head. I really feel like I am blind here to the beauty which makes me sad.
Don't worry, friend. The ear learns to understand, if you give it time. (of course, not everything is for everyone.)
It's strange. I'm with you, but there are other, on the face of it, extremely jarring forms of music that I think are out of this world.
Why I like one and the other, not only leaves me cold but gets me switching for the off button, I've no idea.
As other people have said, sometimes for some people, if you give this sort of music a few goes then all of a sudden you "get" it, and, unlikely as it may seem, it becomes the most beautiful thing you have ever heard. That happened to me with Melt-Banana, Gilla Band, The Happy Flowers, and a few others, but this, and, for instance, Captain Beefheart, leave me completely cold, for now.
Give it a go, it might click one day: If you can find Matt Groening (The Simpsons) talking about Trout Mask Replica have a listen to what he says; he went from "They're not even trying," to "It's the best thing I've ever heard," in about five listens.
Safe to say, no one's taking you for a ride here. If you listen a few times and it doesn't click then maybe it's not for you, but the people who do like it, or love it, are genuine, and I suppose we can at least be happy for them, even if it remains a closed, but very noisy, book to us.
The amount of dissonance one may enjoy changes from person to person, and also the notion of dissonance changes over time. A lot of stuff in the album is not "sophisticated harmony" (all the harmony in it is relatively simple), it's indeed between dissonance and noise. There's a number of people who may enjoy it just as it is, but other people may not, that's very natural. Sometimes enjoying something needs a key to accessing it - i mean to have it making sense to you - and that could arrive to you only years later, i've experienced that too.
@@rtoral Oh wow thank you for responding to my comment! Now that explanation makes sense! Also thanks to the others for your kind words! I will give your art definitely some more time. Cheers!
Edit: I gave it some more time and found reducing the volume made it much more enjoyable for me!