It's been 30 years since Rafael Toral began making his own compositions and solo recordings; today, these recordings sound remarkably prescient and perfectly timeless! To mark the occasion of his start, and to celebrate his unique vision for the guitar and its textural, ambient and emotive capabilities, we're pleased to reissue Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field, his first two long out-of-print albums, on vinyl for the first time!

Sound Mind Sound Body was partly inspired by exploring some of the working principles of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp, extrapolated by Rafael via a unique signal path leading out of his guitar. He paid notice to the massive impact of discreet gestures, creating slow-moving tones and spacious orchestral resonances, drifting and droning with glacial majesty, hardly recognizable as guitar much of the time.

Wave Field, released in 1995, was a departure from the first album into new composition methods involving the dirty textures of rock guitar, sounding in the open ears of many listeners as a synthesis of disparate elements - a nexus where Alvin Lucier, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine and Eno blend together. Here, the clangorous potential of the guitar was emphasized, giving a metallic edge to the two extended pieces and "radio edit" coda. The album's packaging, a subtle MBV tribute, along with the radio edit, suggested a harmony between musical directions as wildly disparate as the minimalist experimental and rock.

Today, such a paradoxical intent is more widely considered as a part of the artist's purview. This allows the sounds of Wave Field and Sound Mind Sound Body to sit perfectly among the forward-reaching music of today - as it continues to evolve in our ears, moving ever towards the next conception of listening space. Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field will be released on May 25th - hit the holiday cash reserves and preorderboth today!