Rafael Toral w/
Gino Robair, Marc Kate, Tonal Masher
Rafael Toral plays electronic music today as a jazz musician would play his instrument, applying jazz discipline and working practices to his abstract electronics. The result is truly evolutionary music, once described as "a brand of electronic music far more visceral and emotive than that of his cerebral peers". Melodic without notes, rhythmic without a beat, familiar but strange, meticulous but radically free, it is riddled with interesting paradox. Toral has developed a musical system to physically play experimental electronic instruments and puts it to practice with large-scale project Space Program — a complex network of recordings and performances to deliver music that is full of clarity and space, articulating silence and sound in a thoughtful, yet physical way.
Formerly known for his drone/ ambient work with guitar and electronics and acclaimed records such as Wave Field (1994) or Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance (2000), he has radically renewed his approach to music, launching the jazz-inspired and alien-sounding Space Program in 2004, using experimental electronic instruments.
Toral's long time connection with Sei Miguel is central to the development of the Space Program. Other collaborations include Jim O'Rourke, Evan Parker, John Edwards, Joe Morris, Tatsuya Nakatani, Chris Corsano, Manuel Mota, David Toop, Alvin Lucier, John Zorn, Phill Niblock, Christian Marclay, Sonic Youth, João Paulo Feliciano, Rhys Chatham, Lee Ranaldo, C Spencer Yeh, Dean Roberts... In 1998 he became a member of MIMEO electronic orchestra. Its other members are Keith Rowe, Thomas Lehn, Kaffe Matthews, Marcus Schmickler, Jérome Noetinger, Christian Fennesz, Peter Rehberg, Gert-Jan Prins, Cor Fuhler and Phil Durrant. Since 2008 he directs the Space Collective, a slowly developing orchestral group.
Also active in visual and spatial arts, Toral has produced video and several installations from 1994 to 2003.
Rafael Toral has performed throughout Europe, Canada, USA, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Australia. He has been active performing and giving workshops.
Marc Kate
A detour from his electronic post-punk/synthgaze solo project Never Knows, artist Marc Kate has created static experiments in synthesis that embody the opposite of New Age music. These static, spacious sounds, while haunting and etherial, are anything but spiritual. Instead, Kate’s music is visceral, material and deeply human.
Originally trained as a filmmaker and visual artist, San Francisco based producer and composer Marc Kate applies a cinematic and conceptual approach to music and audio production.
Faint outlines of melody and song are buried and burdened by an ocean of distortion, self-doubt and melancholy. In effect: a music that undermines itself. Each track is a calculated performance of cathartic release, pitting delicate gesture against brute force. For those familiar with Tim Hecker, Lawrence English or Rafael Anton Irisarri, Kate similarly creates a tension between serenity and dissonance, crossing vintage analog with laptop experimentation.
He most recently released “File #08”, his debut for San Francisco label Computer Tapes.
http://www.nvrknws.com/
https://soundcloud.com/nvrknws
https://computertapes.bandcamp.com/album/file-08
Videos featuring musicians playing at this event
Gino Robair and John Butcher, 2008