Rarely does a Portuguese musician’s album risen so high in international recognition. Spectral Evolution was the 2nd best album of 2024 for The Wire magazine, 7th for The Quietus website and 14th for Pitchfork.

Many years later, Rafael Toral picks up the guitar once again and puts it in dialogue with electronic sounds taken from his Space Program series and with an astonishing evocation of the sounds of nature. A set of themes that can be heard like successive waves of transcendent beauty, in a continuous revelation. The Wire refers to these compositions as naturalistic pieces or “birdsong transcribed and played by ray guns in mid-20th century Hollywood”; Toral compares this intoxicating soundscape to a garden overrun with wild herbs.

Photo © Vera Marmelo