Derek Monypeny – The Hand as Dealt
Derek Monypeny’s latest The Hand as Dealt raises many questions about the nature of desert sound. A sonic representation of the multifaceted darkness and light found within the shadows of the Mojave mountains, The Hand as Dealt, questions about traditionalism and experimentalism, the binary between the natural and the inorganic, and the duality of spirituality and chaos.
Artfully recorded at Studio Pendejo and at Charlie Stavish’s Clock Tower studio, the album at times lullaby-like, at others anxiety-core at its most intriguing. Inspired by spiritual jazz greats and minimalist greats like Alice Coltrane and Terry Riley, gentle strums melt away into frenetic, digital wiggling sounds, and back again.
Using the shahi baaja, an electrified and modified zither-like instrument, and electric guitar, Monypenny dives into the balance of sounds and silence, using noise most melodically in the troughs, and intricate plucking patterns form the crests, alternating soothing tones between wired moments.
The opening track, “Yoncalla/Drain” immediately responds to the dual nature of the track and album overall, with a looping, unwinding floating intro that soon gives way to a spiraling drone.
The record’s more delicate moments sandwich “The Tamarisk,” a six minute frenetic, brain-grating siren that turns the softly blossoming desert plant into a living, seething being – not an easy listen, to be sure, but highly interesting and involved and calling into question the role of associations and culture as related to clamor.
By the album’s culmination, “(You Are Just) Playing In The Entranceway,” Monypeny has victoriously collapsed any polarity between the worlds of melody and cacophony, demonstrating that with mastery comes congruity.
