The house of YOBS is empty, other than myself and Gerald. Empty in the sense that there is no show happening, there is no group of people spending time together. Nobody in the living room, nor outside. Gerald chops through five pounds of tomatoes and onions, tossing various amounts of mustard or tamari or whiskey into pots and pans, electric warmth running through their bases, the birthing of his newest batch of “Bomb Sauce”, an on-going label for his delicious variations on BBQ, here: an almost chili like creation, in the sense that rather than being a condiment, it's typically the main attraction of a meal. I enjoy it on an open faced grilled cheese: sourdough with provolone, actually.
About a week and a half ago, I had a new record that I was releasing on my label get all finished up, and so there's that immediate sense of wanting it completely assembled as soon as all of the components arrive. Sometimes I do this alone on the floor of my bedroom, listening to records and frantically folding covers and inserting records and inserts as quickly as possible. Sometimes I contract it out as a job for the developmentally disabled individuals at the sheltered workshop where I work, which is always a bit of a weird territory to veer into just because of my own boundaries.
This time around, after finding out that Rafael Toral had a new LP out (grabbing it instantly but not having listened to it yet), I decided that Gerald and I should spend time together listening to his work. ...not just this new LP, but the entire “Space Program” series that leads up to it: a double LP of a fully orchestrated project, a stripped down and singular supplement to it which came afterwords, and the first volume of “Space Elements”, the second of two being the one that had just come out.
About a year ago, John Quintos had the pleasure of sharing Rafael Toral's work with me while we were alone at Eastside Records, and in some ways it was the perfect setting for exposure. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on this guy's work, so I will offer only my own thoughts and their small verifiable truths witnessed through just a few short videos of him performing and (more so) speaking. I think the term Toral is using was “post-free jazz for electronics”, which is a perfect future genre for these works, though doesn't necessarily tell you what it's going to sound like.
Using small hand-made / altered electronics and new methods and combinations of pre-existing units (small amps feeding back through specific filters, theramin controlled white noise generators, glove controlled computer sine-waves, for example), Toral creates sparse conversations between his gear and the “planet Earth” instruments of his collaborators (bells, trombone, trumpet, flute, etc). The result is not music, so much as it is a conversation. Emphasis is not given to anything specifically, other than the permission for his simple creations to sputter and send out signals to interact with and navigate through the occasion input from sounds that are more familiar to the casual listener. That, and the appropriate use of silence.
“Space Program”, and yet the result is almost more natural and environmentally grounded than any other “music” that is out there. These sounds like birds at times, dolphins at others, and just as would happen in nature, there emerges a flow and perhaps unavoidable display of communication that is very captivating if you are willing to listen, even while being completely absent of any sort of pattern or “music” or even series of notes.
Although this is truly experimental and progressive, leaving traditional methods behind and embracing a rare combination of sounds and more so approach, there are some parallels that can be observed and appreciated, most notably to one of my favorite records, Marion Brown's “Afternoon of Georgia Faun” LP. While that does have sections where things are falling back to at least a somewhat recognizable format (and it's still a pretty “out there” take on free jazz it it's most put together parts), that Marion Brown record take similar liberties in allowing the silence of empty space and non-music collages and interactions between various instruments and percussion.
In both the case of “Afternoon...” and Toral's “Space Program”, one may very well be lost on who would be listening to and liking these records, while simultaneously having this understanding (or at least connection) with the creation themselves. That Marion Brown LP is not for most people who like “jazz”. Rafael Toral's “Space Series” is not for most people who like “electronic music”, “noise”, “modern composer” or even the bulk of whatever may be lumped into “avant garde”.
As for myself, reading through and editing some personal writing from a trip to Atlanta a couple of months ago, while occasion slipping in a few pieces of dialog with Gerald, who continued to give live to his next batch of sauce, Toral provides not only the perfect soundtrack, but is actively involved with the overall feeling and conversation of the house as well, and I think that there are few things that can exist in conjunction with the two of us like that. There's a million ambient or minimalist things that could be noninvasive, but the communication being offered through the “Space Program” is much more substantial and does nothing but enrich an already good company.
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