Rafael Toral

Since the mid-'00s, Portugal's Rafael Toral has been working on his "Space Program," a planned ten-disc exploration of homemade electronics and collaborative improvisation that brings together his love of early free-jazz and pioneering doohickery. Prior to this, Toral's calling card was his incredibly deft touch at turning guitar work into staggeringly beautiful vistas of hue and tone. Violence of Discovery was originally released by Touch in 2000 and, as this reissue proves, remains his crowning achievement in that field. Most of the pieces meditate on the vibration of strings, using them as a basis to tease and sculpt harmonious forms out of the generative accidents. Despite the EFX-driven processes, Toral's results feel organic and simple, like vivid descriptions of slow blossoms or clouds bursting. The album grows more organized and musical as it unfolds, culminating in "Mixed States Uncoded," an actually "played" guitar piece that could have been lifted from My Bloody Valentine's Loveless sessions. From start to finish this is a work of art.