Christopher Willits

Christopher Willits, active as a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and filmmaker, produces electronic music marked by warmth and immersion through the integration of digital and analog components. In keeping with his regular instruction of both music production and meditation, he draws on forward-thinking technology to shape introspective pieces. Early notice arrived for him in the first years of the 2000s with melodic glitch releases including the 2002 album Folding, and the Tea, where “folding” denotes the nonlinear resampling technique enabled by his self-built software. Projects such as 2006’s Surf Boundaries ventured into shoegaze-tinged avant-pop, whereas later recordings like 2019’s Sunset and 2022’s Gravity represented his most unadorned ambient statements. Beyond frequent partnerships with Taylor Deupree and Ryuichi Sakamoto, he has sustained ongoing work with Tycho and joined Kid606, Matmos, and Zach Hill in the experimental outfit Flössin. He also co-established the creative network Overlap and the spatial audio platform Envelop.

Born in Kansas City, Willits pursued visual arts training at the Kansas City Art Institute and performed guitar with the band Saturn 138 in the late 1990s. He later earned a master’s degree in electronic music at Mills College in Oakland, California. During his studies he started issuing CD-Rs documenting his processed guitar explorations. Following a performance shared with Taylor Deupree in San Francisco, his debut full-length, Folding, and the Tea, came out on Deupree’s 12k imprint in 2002. Their joint work began immediately, yielding the 2003 Audiosphere release Invisible Architecture #8. Willits’ solo set Pollen, recorded in 2001 with plans to serve as his initial proper album, surfaced via Fällt in 2003; a limited 7" titled Little Edo also appeared. Further collaborative output followed in 2004, with Mujo (alongside Deupree) on the Japanese label Plop and Ache issuing Lead Singer, the first recording from Flössin—an improvisational trio completed by Miguel Depedro (Kid606) and Zach Hill (Hella, later of Death Grips). A third Deupree collaboration, Live in Japan, 2004, reached listeners on 12k in 2005.

Willits entered the Ghostly International roster once founder Sam Valenti IV encountered his music on a 12k compilation. After supplying the track “Breathe (In 7 Sections)” to Ghostly’s SMM Vol. 2 EP in 2004, his debut album for the label, Surf Boundaries, arrived in 2006. Far more approachable than earlier work, the album enlisted numerous guest musicians such as Medicine/Electric Company founder Brad Laner and vocalist Latrice Barnett. That same year Ghostly also put out The Right Kind of Nothing, Willits’ full-length project with Laner under the North Valley Subconscious Orchestra banner. Listening Garden, a Deupree collaboration created for installation use, emerged on Line in 2007; the solo EP Plants and Hearts appeared on Room40 the same year. In 2008, Willits’ first joint effort with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ocean Fire, was released by 12k. Flössin’s Serpents EP, now featuring Matmos in place of Kid606 alongside Willits and Hill, followed in 2009.

His second Ghostly full-length, Tiger Flower Circle Sun, surfaced in 2010 and extended the abstract pop direction of Surf Boundaries. After Flössin’s second album, White Anaconda and the Rainbow Boa, appeared in 2011, Willits’ next recording with Sakamoto, Ancient Future, came out on Ghostly in 2012. Opening, which incorporated instrumental contributions from members of Tycho, arrived in 2014. In 2017 Willits issued his score for the music documentary The Art of Listening; Ghostly simultaneously released Horizon, a spatial audio album. Sunset, conceived as a soundtrack for that precise occurrence, followed in 2019. By the time of its release, Willits had already captured guitar improvisations inside a Japanese temple; those sessions supplied the foundation for his subsequent album, assembled across Oakland, Oahu, and Kansas City while he tended to his ailing mother. Gravity, created expressly for healing purposes, was issued by Ghostly in 2022.