Turner Williams Jr. and Derek Monypeny — Drueling (Twenty One Eighty Two)
Turner Williams Jr.
Drueling is a first for each of its participants, and quite possibly the world. It is a sequence of improvised duets between two shahi baaja players, Turner Williams Jr. and Derek Monypeny. Neither had jammed with a like-equipped player before, and if there’s another record of one, it’s flying below the radar of readily available search engines. So, let’s just say that this LP is the first, and if a genre is to ensue, it’s off to a good start.
Monypeny is based in California, where he’s carved out a solo career playing desert-kissed electric music on guitar and shahi baaja following early involvement with the groups Alto and Oaxacan, as well as membership in Sir Richard Bishop’s Freak Of Araby band. Williams is an Alabama-born visual and musical artist who has played under the name Ramble Tamble. While both are American, this Drueling was recorded in Marseilles, France, where Williams currently lives. The encounter took place during a break in Monypeny’s tour of Europe in 2023, during which the two sat down in front of a digital recorder in Williams’ studio and improvised into the night.
The shahi baaja, which is also sometimes called a Japan banjo, is part of the keyboard zither family. Its solid wood body is roughly three feet from end to end. It has a pair of melody strings which are depressed by typewriter keys and 13 more strings that function as a drone harp. If you wish to know more about the instrument, Drueling comes with an informative insert drawn by Williams. The signal chain of skinny strings —> pickup —> amplifier generates a sound fairly close to that of an electric guitar, but because it is played by keys while sitting in the player’s lap (although some, like Chris Pravdica of Swans, have taken to putting it on a stand), the attack is more circular. When you throw in effects, as do both Monypeny and Williams, the effect can be a twangy maelstrom. On “Free Deliverance,” the opening track, one player draws quivering sworls while the other plays a loping pattern, rather like a West African guitar jam, which is punctuated by bluesy slurs. And the melody of the Sun City Girls’ “Space Prophet Dogon,” which is a recurring theme in Monypeny’s solo sets, seems to materialize out of a star-scape of twinkling tones like the constellation that you can only see after your eyes have adjusted to the night sky.
Sometimes, the effects dominate. The collision of swells, blip trails and string stutters on “Calanque I” bring to mind what might have happened if Fennesz and Derek Bailey had sat down for an afternoon concert after someone dusted their tea with a tiny dose of powdered pain pills. And on “Pylône Song,” quick squiggles worthy of Henry Kaiser cavort over a peristaltic surface that’s occasionally punctuated by a good old-fashioned digital skip. The effect is deeply psychedelic; the duo’s fingers fly so that heads may nod.
I cant be anymore hyper, Today at 3pm i will oficially be 24 hours awake. I wonder when my crash will get here and ill be laying down drueling my pillows and sheets. O.o
