Abacomancy [LP]

Derek Monypeny And Kevin Corcoran - Abacomancy [LP]

Abacomancy (defined as "a form of divination based on the interpretation of the patterns in dust, dirt, silt, or sand") is the first record by the duo of Derek Monypeny and Kevin Corcoran. Monypeny and Corcoran have a decades-long personal and musical relationship; they played in the free-improv trio DMPH with the late tenor saxophonist Chad Stockdale, who released a 7-inch on Stockdale's Weird Forest label in 2010. Abacomancy is the result of a one-day recording session in Monypeny's adopted town of Joshua Tree, CA in the spring of 2022. Entirely improvised, the tracks display an impressively wide variety of approaches/moods/emotions: from blistering Sharrockian skronk (Part One) to meditative Eastern-influenced shimmer (Part Three, which features Monypeny on shahi baaja), to dark, foreboding long-form drone (Part Five). There's a remarkable synergy at work here; particularly impressive is Corcoran's highly sympathetic and textural playing on the quieter, more drone-based tracks. Monypeny, whose free-improv guitar playing has not been much documented on record, presents a gamut of sounds and dynamics, taking Abacomancy far beyond a typical document of a high-energy/free-blowing session. Shortly after the Abacomancy recording session, Corcoran returned to the Mojave Desert to make location sound recordings and photographs while staying in an off-the-grid research cabin. Following lines etched in the land by atmospheric forces and by traces of human infrastructure, Corcoran took a series of walks to observe and immerse in the desert landscape. Mojave Traces, a photographic book included with Abacomancy, collects compositions found in the weathered scatter of stratigraphic surfaces and the eerie stillness of industrial and agricultural disuse in expansive spaces. 01. Abacomancy Part 1 (8:43) 02. Abacomancy Part 2 (6:16) 03. Abacomancy Part 3 (6:46) 04. Abacomancy Part 4 (4:51) 05. Abacomancy Part 5 (12:41) 06. Abacomancy Part 6 (5:56)