Bleep

Rafael Toral’s long out-of-print debut LP gets the reissue treatment via Drag City. The label have done a fine job of collating material from the differing 1994 and 1999 versions of Sound Mind Sound Body. All eight of the tracks which featured across those two releases are collated here, giving a holistic view of the Portuguese guitarist’s methods and aesthetic. This record is more varied than the ultra-tranquil ambient soundscapes that Toral later made, though the likes ‘AER4’ and ‘Sofy Energy’ operate in the same space as records like Wave Field. Elsewhere Toral’s interest in the work of Robert Fripp comes out more strongly, particularly in the plink-plonk playing on ‘AER 7 E’.