Rafael Toral "Traveling Light"
From out of the dark, the crackle of feed back birdsong signals a return to the land of sound environments exclusive to the music of Rafael Toral. A year and a half after his epochal electric guitar album, Spectral Evolution, Traveling Light finds him sharpening his focus, moving boldly from abstract forms to concrete compositions in the form of a set of jazz standards.
Based on Toral’s discography, this may seem an unlikely endeavor, but happily, Traveling Light transpires to be one of the major accomplishments in his long history, expressing these songs on their own terms through the unique listening lens of his music. It’s nearly a century since the innovation that electrified the guitar, almost a century since the era of songs like “Easy Living” and “Body and Soul.” Since then, guitars and songs have been played hundreds of different ways by thousands of diverse individuals. After a century of progress, they probably should sound like something else again! And they do, as Toral sidesteps the traditional logic of how to play a song, moving outside the framework with which one would expect a standard to be treated.
Three decades ago, in the early years of his practice, Toral used the guitar as a generator, to create discreet texture and droning tones. Later, he abandoned the guitar entirely, focusing on self-made electronics to render his music, and the silence from which it came, with a post-free jazz perspective. For the music of Spectral Evolution and Traveling Light, Toral has combined his methodologies, radically expanding the space within their harmonies with his self-made machines, while engaging directly with his instrument and the chords of the material. The result is a listening experience of these standards, that remains “in the tradition,” even as the elongated harmonies seem to alter time such that, as Toral notes, “the chords become events on their own.” At points, the long tones animate the sacred ennui of liturgic music, the choir or the organ standing in for silent contemplation while rumbling the ground beneath our feet. Another echo of the concentric circling of music in time…
Further time-loops emerge throughout the duration of Traveling Light. The simple, organic quality of these reshaped songs and sounds, arranged by Toral for guitar with sine waves, feedback and bass guitar forms a proxy orchestra of sorts! One of Toral’s self-made devices incorporates a theremin — another near-century old innovation in electronics conceived for use in classical music — to modulate feedback melodies here. Meanwhile, this altered space is visited by canonical jazz sounds on four tracks, as clarinetist José Bruno Parrinha, tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, flügelhorn player Yaw Tembe and flautist Clara Saleiro each guest on one song. In this new landscape, history and tradition are exemplified, like a toast to Earth cultures made on the alien terrain of Mars.
In every contour of Traveling Light’s path — arrangement, improvisation and production — the spring of the old pours through the new in an unstoppable flow. This is the sound of life, a nexus point for the music of the last century and the music ever unfurling toward the far horizons of the next century.
Karen Schoemer "August"
The debut album by acclaimed poet Karen Schoemer, featuring 31 poems constructed collage-style into “a month of August,” refined at an artist’s residency at Herman Melville’s Arrowhead in Pittsfield, MA. With experimental musical accompaniment by Oli Heffernan, Mike Watt, Amy Rigby, Eric Hardiman, Steve Almaas, Parashi and more.
Action/Adventure "Ever After"
Jim Keller "End of the World"
A cult figure in the music business, Keller’s gigs at New York’s Lakeside Lounge and The Rockwood Music Hall are legendary. If the best players in town weren’t on stage with him, they were in the audience, singing along, playing along, making the sort of noise that would get you locked up in a lesser town.
Produced by long time musical director Adam Minkoff this is a rocking set of 12 Keller originals that confirms Kellers as one of the most exciting and most prolific singer/songwriters of today’s New York music scene.
From the horse’s mouth:
In 2022 I got together with my New York friend Adam Minkoff (a producer, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who tours with Graham Nash and Amy Helm) to record tracks for an album that we released as Spark and Flame. After that project, I picked up where I left off with my LA buddy Mitchell Froom (a producer of artists such as Los Lobos, Richard Thompson and Suzanne Vega plus musician who is a member of Crowded House) for our second album with Bob Glaub, David Hidalgo and Michael Urbano, called Daylight. Those two projects were in many ways opposites; Adam records tracks, and with Mitchell, everything is totally live. Both were a blast.
Then Adam and I reconvened with our usual jam-session array of Brooklyn, Woodstock and New York City musicians, and a new set of songs emerged. They became this album, End of the World.
Adam produced. We recorded me on guitar and vocals, Lee Falco on drums and Adam on bass, then built the tracks from there. This allowed Adam and I to play with the arrangements and instrumentation in the studio. If there is a downside, it’s that tinkering with songs takes time, but experimentation in the studio is a luxury and process is almost always joyful and engaging. As always, the songs are almost all written by me with Byron Isaacs (singer, songwriter, and bassist for The Lumineers and Ollabelle)) who has been my partner in crime for over 15 years and comes up with all the best lines…
I hope you find something in here to enjoy.
Cheers! Jim Keller