Rafael Toral

Musician and artist. Born in Lisbon, he has been performing live since 1984. Having attempted to study music, he realized his path was one of exploration and discovery, to which conventional music teaching was irrelevant. He learned acoustics, electronics and music writing, having started to write music on paper after his former fascination with graphic scores. In 1994, Wave Field determined a shift in composing methods, taking from then on sound itself as the basic matter for all music, thus rendering his work unwriteable. Considered later in the 1990’s by the Chicago Reader to be “one of the most gifted and innovative guitarists of the decade”, he worked extensively on the possibilities of ambient music (variable attention listening process) and improvisation with higher levels of risk (using instruments or systems that behave in unpredictable ways), among other things.

Developing solo work since 1987, with a strong focus on how sound phenomena, ambient sound and artistic fruition are inter-related and weaving a unique blend of references such as ambient, rock, chance and improvisation, Toral recorded several solo CDs, four with the MIMEO orchestra and two with com No Noise Reduction, an experimental project with long time friend and collaborator Paulo Feliciano.