Christopher Willits (born April 8, 1978) is a

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

-based guitarist, electronic music composer and producer, visual artist and scholar. His music is electroacoustic in nature, in that both analogue and digital sounds are meshed into one singular sound.

Biography

Born in

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

, MO, Willits began playing guitar when he was about 13. He got his first guitar after a football game when, out of the blue, his father suggested they buy one for him. He'd played piano as a child, but up to this point, his main interest had been sports. "I couldn't really stand piano. It felt too boxy and classical," he remembers. "I loved that dynamic energy of sports and the improvisation... I played everything; soccer, baseball, basketball. ... That's really where my understanding of improvisation and teamwork came in." With his own guitar, he began playing all the time, trying to figure out the solos that he heard on his Jimi Hendrix records, and then forming bands in the psychedelic vein. Also a visual artist, he attended the

Kansas City Art Institute The Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI) is a private art school in Kansas City, Missouri. The college was founded in 1885 and is an accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design and Higher Learning Commission. It has approx ...

, where he studied painting, then came to

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was r ...

in California where he studied with

Fred Frith Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith (born 17 February 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock ...

and

Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Ce ...

. An ambient album released while still in college on Taylor Dupree's

12K 12k is an American independent record label, based in Pound Ridge, New York, United States. It was founded on January 1, 1997, by Taylor Deupree. The label focuses on experimental electronic music, specifically on digital minimalism and contempo ...

label launched his solo career. “A universal talent, not only a virtuosic musician but an adept computer programmer—to create his shimmering walls of sound he uses his own custom software (he began inventing his own guitar effects when he was 13), and accompanies live performances with interactive visuals.” The Kansas City native came to the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

in 2000 (After a painting scholarship at KCAI)and received a master's degree in electronic music at Mills College where he studied with Fred Frith and Pauline Oliveros. Along the way, he advanced his skills in photography, cinematography and new media. Willits completed a master's degree in

electronic music Electronic music is a Music genre, genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or electronics, circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromech ...

. Willits, as a solo artist or in collaboration, has released music on the following record labels:

12k 12k is an American independent record label, based in Pound Ridge, New York, United States. It was founded on January 1, 1997, by Taylor Deupree. The label focuses on experimental electronic music, specifically on digital minimalism and contempo ...

(USA),

Ghostly International Ghostly International is an American independent record label founded in 1999 by Samuel Valenti IV and currently headquartered in Brooklyn, New York City. Chief artists include Matthew Dear, Dabrye (a.k.a. Tadd Mullinix), Com Truise, Tycho, G ...

(USA), Fällt(Ireland),

Sub Rosa ''Sub rosa'' (New Latin for "under the rose") denotes secrecy or confidentiality. The rose has an ancient history as a symbol of secrecy. History In Hellenistic and later Roman mythology, roses were associated with secrecy because Cupid ga ...

(Belgium),

Ache Records Ache Records is an independent record label based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was started by the musician Andy Dixon around 1999. Ache releases music for both Canadian and foreign acts. The first release on Ache Records was Hot Hot ...

(Canada), Yacca (Japan) and Plop (Japan). He has toured throughout Europe, America, Mexico, Canada, Australia, China, Thailand, and Japan. Willits has participated in numerous projects, including collaborations with

Ryuichi Sakamoto is a Japanese composer, pianist, singer, record producer and actor who has pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto i ...

Tycho Tycho is a masculine given name, a latinization of Greek Τύχων, from the name of Tyche ( grc-gre, Τύχη, link=no), the Greek goddess of fortune or luck. The Russian form of the name is '' Tikhon'' (Тихон). People Given name * Tych ...

Zach Hill Zachary Charles Hill (born December 28, 1979) is an American multi-instrumentalist and visual artist. He is best known as the drummer and co-producer of the groups Death Grips and the I.L.Y's, and as the drummer of math rock band Hella. Ar ...

(drummer from the band

Death Grips Death Grips is an American experimental hip hop group formed in 2010 in Sacramento, California. The group consists of Stefan Burnett, also known as MC Ride (vocals, lyrics), Zach Hill (drums, production, lyrics), and Andy Morin (keyboards, pro ...

and

Hella ''Hella'' is an American slang term that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is used as an intensifying adverb such as in "hella bad" or "hella good" and was eventually added to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' in 2002. It is possibl ...

Kid606 Miguel Trost De Pedro (born July 27, 1979), better known by his stage name Kid606, is an electronic musician who was raised in San Diego and later moved to San Francisco. He is most closely associated with the glitch, IDM, hardcore techno and b ...

Brad Laner Brad Laner (born November 6, 1966 in Los Angeles, California) is an American musician and record producer best known for his work with the shoegaze band Medicine, which he founded and led. Prior to Medicine, he was involved in avant-improv ba ...

(Medicine), Nate Boyce, Latrice Barnett (singer/songwriter and bassist for

Handsome Boy Modeling School Handsome Boy Modeling School is an American collaborative project between hip hop producers Dan the Automator (Gorillaz, Dr. Octagon, Deltron 3030) and Prince Paul (Stetsasonic, De La Soul, Gravediggaz). The collaboration originally lasted fro ...

Taylor Deupree Taylor Deupree (born April 30, 1971), is an American electronic musician, photographer, graphic designer and mastering engineer. He is most known for the founding of the 12k record label, along with his work as a member of Prototype 909, and his ...

(12k record label founder), Scott Pagano (visual artist and motion graphics designer),

Matmos Matmos is an experimental electronic music duo originally from San Francisco but now residing in Baltimore. M. C. (Martin) Schmidt and Drew Daniel are the core members, but they frequently include other artists on their records and in their per ...

. Willits is also the founder and director of the record label and community building organization Overlap.

Education

Willits regularly teaches workshops on spatial audio, music production, the creative process, and leadership. He has taught at

California College of the Arts California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in San ...

(CCA),

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximatel ...

(SFAI),

Berkeley City College Berkeley City College (BCC, formerly Vista Community College) is a public community college in Berkeley, California. It is part of the California Community Colleges System and the Peralta Community College District. Berkeley City College is accr ...

(BCC), The Art Institute San Francisco, Norcal DJMPA, Sound Arts, the

Bay Area Video Coalition BAVC Media, previously known as the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC), is a nonprofit organization that works to connect independent producers and underrepresented communities to emerging media technologies. It was founded in 1976 in San Francis ...

and

Goucher College Goucher College ( ') is a private liberal arts college in Towson, Maryland. It was chartered in 1885 by a conference in Baltimore led by namesake John F. Goucher and local leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church.https://archive.org/details/ ...

. Willits is also a meditation teacher teaching at The Center (cite ), Habitas, Envelop SF, and his own private workshops.

Instruments and Tools

Willits plays a custom Moog guitar. Along with various outboard gear and uses

Ableton Live Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Ableton Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool ...

with

Max for Live Max, also known as Max/MSP/Jitter, is a visual programming language for music and multimedia developed and maintained by San Francisco-based software company Cycling '74. Over its more than thirty-year history, it has been used by composers, per ...

, and Touch Designer for video processing.

Envelop

Willits is the executive director of Envelop, a nonprofit organization that amplifies the connective power of music through immersive audio venues, and open source spatial audio production software.

Overlap

Christopher Willits directs the creative collective http://overlap.org which is involved in creative community building events and runs a studio in

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

CA.

Folding

Willits' guitar lines and harmonies are folded into each other using custom-designed software (Willits uses the term "folding" to describe the non-linear, real-time indexing, cutting and re-sampling of guitar and voice). Willits, in an interview, further expanded on the term 'folding,' "It has a lot to do with time. I actually wrote a whole thesis about this, if you want to go to the Mills library and check it out aughs It's a very simple process of recording something to memory and then indexing at different points. But instead of it being a granular process form of synthesis in which a sample is separated into 'grains' I'm actually skating to different locations within this memory. So there's this continuous rupture of time that creates these rhythmic patterns, so these melodic patterns start to emerge out of this time processing technique."

Discography

*''Gravity'' (Ghostly International) - 2022 *''Sunset'' (Ghostly International) - 2019 *''Horizon'' (Ghostly International) - 2017 *''The Art of Listening (An Original Score Soundtrack)'' (self-released) - 2014 *''Opening'' (Ghostly International) – 2014 *''Ancient Future'' (Ghostly International) - 2012 *''GOLD'' (Overlap) – 2011 *''Live on Earth – Vol. 3'' (self-released) – 2011 *''Tiger Flower Circle Sun'' (Ghostly International) – 2010 *''Live on Earth – Vol. 2'' (self-released) – 2009 *''Live on Earth – Vol. 1'' (self-released) – 2009 *''Plants and Hearts'' (Room40) – 2007 *''Surf Boundaries'' (Ghostly International) – 2006 *''Pollen'' (Fallt) – 2003 *''Little Edo'' (Nibble) – 2003 *''Folding, and the Tea'' (12k) – 2002 *'':plateaus, centers, stoma...'' (self-released CDR) – 2001 *''storks and wires'' (self-released CDR) – 2000

Collaborations and band projects

*Willits + Sakamoto (Christopher Willits and

) – ''Ancient Future'' (Ghostly International) – 2012 *Boyce + Matmos + Willits - ''Subconscious Attraction Strategies'' (2011) *Willits + Sakamoto (Christopher Willits and Ryuichi Sakamoto) – ''Ocean Fire'' (Commmons/12k) – 2008 *Christopher Willits + Taylor Deupree – ''Listening Garden'' (Line) – 2007 *The North Valley Subconscious Orchestra – ''The Right Kind of Nothing'' (Ghostly International) – 2006 *Christopher Willits + Taylor Deupree – ''Live in Japan 2004'' (12k) – 2005 *Flössin – ''Lead Singer'' (Ache Records, Yacca) – 2004 *Christopher Willits + Taylor Deupree – ''Mujo'' (Plop) – 2004 *Christopher Willits + Taylor Deupree – ''AS08'' (Sub Rosa, Audiosphere) – 2003 *''Saturn 138'' (HWTBL) – 1998

Remixes

* Tycho - ''Montana'' (Christopher Willits Remix) * The Glitch Mob - ''The Clouds Breathe for You'' (Christopher Willits Remix) * Harold Budd - ''Olancha Hello'' (Christopher Willits Remix) * Alejandro Bento - ''Heartbeat'' (Christopher Willits Remix) * Clarinet Factory - ''Nautilus'' (Christopher Willits Remix) * Tmymtur - ''050912/0'' (Christopher Willits Remix)

Compilations

* Various artists – ''Idol Tryouts'' (Ghostly International) – 2006 * Various artists – ''SMM vol.2 – Breathe in Seven Sections'' (Ghostly International) – 2004 * Various artists – ''E*A*D*G*B*E – Seven Machines For Summer'' (12k) – 2003

References

External links

Christopher Willits official website

MikeyPod Podcast interview
with Christopher Willits (2008)
MikeyPod Podcast interview
with Christopher Willits (2017) {{DEFAULTSORT:Willits, Christopher Living people American electronic musicians American experimental musicians Artists from Missouri Musicians from Kansas City, Missouri Ableton Live users Kansas City Art Institute alumni Place of birth missing (living people) Guitarists from Missouri American male guitarists 1978 births