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Even to those familiar
with the diversity of Will Montgomery's aesthetically adventurous approach
to sound—which has encompassed field recording, critical essays, text
scores, poetry, electroacoustic composition, and all points in between—Six
Doses will come as a bold departure. Exploring drum synthesis, 16-step
sequencing, and strictly metered rhythms, this is euphoric music made with
directness and force. The circumstances of its creation, however, endow it
with resonances that ensure continuity with the more cerebral and
conceptual work for which he is best known.
While undergoing chemotherapy in 2024, Montgomery turned to experiments
with samples, FM synthesis, and beats as a means of combating the
enervating effects of treatment. As he received each intravenous dose, he
would begin to compose a new track on his iPad. He would work to refine it
over the following weeks, posting the finished version online on the
evening before his next chemotherapy session. In this way, Montgomery
adapted the temporal rhythm imposed by his treatment regimen—one dose
administered every three weeks—to his own creative ends, repurposing the
course of his therapy as a compositional constraint.
Though occasioned by Montgomery’s illness, Six Doses is anything
but somber. As Montgomery makes explicit in the accompanying liner notes,
this work “is in no way a documentation of the sickness. It emerged in
opposition to the inertia-inducing effects of the treatment and was made
cheerfully in a sunny room." Suffused with vitality and an
exhilarating sense of playfulness, Six Doses is an exploration of
passing time, organized in sound, and an affirmation of Montgomery’s
indefatigable creative energies.
The tracks presented here were revisited, reworked, and refined by
Montgomery in 2025—free of the treatment-imposed limitations on his energy
and ability to concentrate—and mastered for release by A. F. Jones.
This release includes a CDr,
brief liner notes from Will Montgomery, and a digital download.
This is Suppedaneum
no. 30.
Dose
1: Codex Teal 6:13
Dose
2: Coed Exalt 5:27
Dose
3: Exact Load
5:59
Dose
4: Exec Dot La 5:58
Dose
5: Exocet Lad
3:31
Dose
6: Latex Codec 4:33
Will Montgomery is a UK-based musician and
academic whose audio releases include After Black Pond (Selvageflame, 2022), Inoculate Me (with Carol Watts, Selvageflame,
2022), Crystal at the Lips (Organized Music from
Thessaloniki, 2015), Thames Water (Every Contact Leaves a
Trace, 2014), Heygate (Winds
Measure Recordings, 2013), and 2009/5 (Cathnor,
2010).
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