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Christopher Willits is a musician and multimedia artist located in San Francisco, California. Striking a delicate balance between acoustic and electronic sounds and systems, Christopher manages to defy genre distinctions while still defining a “sound” of his own. His numerous solo releases and collaborations cover a broad spectrum of musical styles and include one main commonality: Willits’ unique use of the guitar with custom-made signal processing. This home-brewed software, along with Willits’ six-string prowess, generates a unique real-time mixture of improvised melody and rhythm. |
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Christopher Willits live in Kyoto.Christopher Willits is a musician and multimedia artist located in San Francisco, California. Striking a delicate balance between acoustic and electronic sounds and systems, Christopher manages to defy genre distinctions while still defining a “sound” of his own. His numerous solo releases and collaborations cover a broad spectrum of musical styles and include one main commonality: Willits’ unique use of the guitar with custom-made signal processing. This home-brewed software, along with Willits’ six-string prowess, generates a unique real-time mixture of improvised melody and rhythm. Willits’ guitar lines and harmonies fold into each other. Notes and phrases hook and weave, creating complex patterns of interlocking rhythm, melody and texture.
Willits’ music has received critical acclaim from numerous publications such as The Wire, the BBC, Grooves Magazine, XLR8R, the San Francisco Bay Guardian and URB magazine—where Willits was nominated as one of URB’s “Next 100” artists. Christopher’s unique approaches to performance, instrumentation and production led the SF Bay Guardian to write: “Christopher Willits is the center cell of a rather complex indie-rock-avant-garde-electronic-art Venn diagram here in the Bay Area.”
Willits has released music on the labels Ghostly International (USA), 12k (USA), Sub Rosa (Belgium), Nibble (USA), Ache Records (Canada), Fallt (Ireland), Yacca (Japan) and Plop (Japan). In support of his rigorous release schedules, Willits has toured extensively throughout the World.
Willits’ has a vast range of collaborations he is involved in, which include bands, sound installations and film/video projects. Flossin, a band project organized and produced by Willits, is currently working on a new release that will feature the original lineup of Zach Hill (drummer from the band Hella), Miguel Depedro (Kid606) and Willits, plus Matmos and a familiar remixing cast of indie-electronic/rock artists. Christopher Willits and Brad Laner (formerly of Medicine) recently finished a new album as the North Valley Subconscious Orchestra to be release on Ghostly International in late August 2006. Taylor Deupree (12k label-head) and Willits have released two full-length studio albums and a recent Live CD. Other collaborators include Latrice Barnett (Galactic, Handsome Boy Modeling School), Paul D’Amour (Tool, Lusk), Ryuichi Sakamoto (YMO), sound designer Douglas Murray (Twin Peaks and The English Patient) and video artist Scott Pagano.
Willits completed his Master’s Degree in Electronic Music at Mills College where he studied with Pauline Oliveros, Fred Frith and John Bischoff. At Mills he explored structure-generating processes in music; a focus not unfamiliar to former Mills affiliates John Cage and Steve Reich. Prior to Mills, Willits received a solid visual arts training in painting, sculpture and video art at the Kansas City Art Institute.
