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Christopher Willits

MusicBlog

"You are amazing"

Location: San Francisco

Website: http://www.christopherwillits.com/

Bio: 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 ... (more) manages to defy genre distinctions while still defining a sound unto 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' 6-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 lead The SF Bay Guardian to write: "Christopher Willits is the center cell of of a rather complex indie-rock-avant-garde-electronic-art Venn diagram here in the Bay Area".

Aside from Ghostly, Willits has released music on the labels 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. Flössin, 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) have formed the North Valley Subconscious Orchestra, releasing The Right Kind of Nothing. 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, Feersum Ennjin), Keiichi Sugimoto (Cubic Music), sound designer Douglas Murray (Twin Peak 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. (less)