Christopher Willits’ Top Ten Album Picks

San Francisco-based artist Christopher Willits‘ musical career took leaps in 2006 with his Surf Boundaries release on Ghostly. A definite renaissance man who enjoys blurring genres, Willits includes one common element in his many different styles–his use of the guitar with custom-made signal processing. Using homemade software, he creates complex melodies and rhythms that set him a few bars above the average guitar player.

Chris was nice enough to compile a list of 10 albums for XLR8R that are his current favorites. Read on to find out what’s in heavy rotation on his stereo.

Christopher Willits’ Site

Christopher Willits’ Top Ten Album Picks

VineloMadagascar: A Master Of The Maro TadyVDE-Gallo
Vinelo will make you fall into a trance while shakin’ your booty.

CarpentersClose To YouA&M
Vocal harmonies and arrangements that are constantly blowing my mind.

Stephan Mathieu And Janek SchaeferHidden NameCronica
The best (okay, i’m going to say it) “ambient” release I’ve heard in quite a while. Congrats, guys, and thanks for keeping things fresh and with depth.

The Italian FuturistsMusica Futurista: The Art of NoisesSyn
When avant-garde really meant that. Crazy stuff.

Brad Laner Unreleased LP
Brad has an amazing sense of melody, song, and noise, and someone really needs to release this record. Brad is not shopping it around because he has too many melodies in his head to mess with right now.

Jeff ParkerLike-CopingDelmark
You beautiful player, you. Jeff is the Jim Hall of this generation. Fucking sick, my friend. A very overlooked LP, in my opinion.

PinbackSummer In AbaddonTouch and Go
Not sure why my friends don’t believe me when i say that I love this record. It’s just there; definitely hits it. A complete record. Slamming singles. But above all it’s a great record. Light yellow, pink, and brown. Pinback’s version of Siamese Dream.

So PercussionSteve Reich:DrummingCantaloupe
Is this better than the OG release? These guys rip. Gradual process speaks to the soul, invites us into the energy.

Stevie Wonder Music of My Mind Motown
About every six months I rediscover how amazing this record is. If you love “Girl Blue,” definitely check the “Main Ingredients” cover.

Alice ColtranePtah The El DaoudVerve Music
Wow. Light.

Coachella Tickets On Sale Saturday

As previously reported, this year’s Coachella Festival is packed with awesome (and some not-so-awesome) artists and a few bands reuniting for the cause, and will run for three days instead of the usual two.

Be assured that tickets will sell out fast, so set your alarms this weekend, then get ready to fork over the bucks to your friends at TicketMaster. General admission is $249 for a three-day pass. There will be a very limited number of single-day tickets for $85 each, plus a service fee. For campers, the camping passes will go on sale at the same time. The four-night passes to the grounds are $45.

Tickets will be available via the TicketMaster charge-by-phone lines (213-480-3232) and online.

The ticket-buying madness starts Saturday, January 27 at 10am Pacific Time. Be there.

The Knife Releases Deluxe Silent Shout, New Single

As most of you are aware, it’s nearly impossible to catch a live performance by Swedish brother/sister synth-pop duo The Knife. They’re not only private people by nature (hence the masks), they’re also so popular that should you hesitate a moment you’ll be found standing ticketless in the dust of every indie kid on the planet’s boots. Not to mention, the duo hasn’t played many U.S. dates outside the major cities.

Keenly aware of this fact, Mute Records has put together a nice little package for those not able to see the band, the Silent Shout Deluxe Edition CD-DVD, to be released in April.

It’s as good as it sounds. The three-disc set includes the Silent Shout album and a DVD of The Knife – Silent Shout: An Audiovisual Experience. The latter features an Andreas Nilsson-directed live show and music videos. Finally, a live audio CD completes the goods.

Meanwhile, the duo continues releasing material from the non-deluxe Silent Shout, with a new single due out in February. “Marble House” will get refurbished for the dancefloor by Booka Shade and Rex the Dog, then remixed again by Dave Sitek (TV on the Radio) and Planningtorock. The CD version of the single also includes the track’s video. The 12″ features an extra remix by Booka Shade.

“Marble House” is out February 20, 2007, on Mute.

Receiver Gallery Presents Your Face Looks Like An Island

Loneliness, desolation, altered states of reality, and being stranded all play a part in Receiver Gallery’s latest exhibition, Your Face Looks Like An Island. The San Francisco-based gallery will feature the work of Belgian artist Sacha Eckes and Porous Walker (who claims he was once visited by the ghost of Shel Silverstein).

The two artists approach the subject of the island in their own distinct ways. Eckes favors amorphous shapes and lines, while Porous takes a three-dimensional approach, creating his own islands he peoples with juvenile figures.

Your Face Looks Like An Island runs February 3 – February 27, 2007.
The opening reception is February 3, from 7 – 10pm.

Receiver Gallery
1415 Valencia Street, S.F.

“Your Face” by Sacha Eckes.

Various Artists Imagine the Shapes

Over the past year, What’s Your Rupture has emerged as the little indie label that could-and kept could-ing. Clawing with the big boys and signing impeccably cool band after impeccably cool band, WYR has put together a glistening roster. Here’s a spread of their labor-fruit: some C-86 worship from caUSE co-MOTION, a bit of The Long Blondes’ Sheffield-bred, grrl-led “glamorous punk,” the cagey, belly-grumbling indie pop of Love Is All, and Comet Gain’s four-track sleekness. An impressive start for a little indie that won’t be little for much longer.

Various Artists Om: Chilled

Chill… It’s in the air, everywhere, and on far too many compilations claiming to be the definitive source. San Francisco’s Om has traveled down the winding road of chill with its Om Lounge series, but Om: Chilled veers down a slightly different path. It isn’t all downtempo flavor, though it starts off that way with, appropriately, Headphonism’s “Stay Home and Chill”; it also features poppin’ broken beats (Gil Tamazyan’s jazzy “Planten’s Cove”), densely layered hip-hop (Joey Youngman’s bangin’ “Conflict Resolution”), and spooky melodies built around shuffling beats (Bassnectar’s “So Butterly”). This is chill with attitude.

Various Artists Lusine: Podgelism

As Lusine, producer Jeff McIlwain has made a name for himself within the pop ambient world, but his Podgelism remixes are in an entirely different league. Featuring a stunning array of producers, from techno stalwart John Tejada to BPitch’s Apparat to Ghostly’s own Matthew Dear, this eclectic compilation unfolds with the grace of a track-to-track mixtape. While each piece contains layer upon layer of calming synth pads, it’s the glitch-and-chop percussion of Cepia’s “Flat” that gives Lusine’s textures a brand new life.

One Be Lo & Longshot “Learn”

Chicago’s EV Records began in 1998 and has since become a magnet for the city’s north-side hip-hop scene. Now the label is embarking into compilation territory with its first-ever sampler. Everything is a glimpse at what the EV crew has created over the last few years and what they have in store for the future. The compilation features numbers from Psalm One, Royce Da 5’9, Earmint, and K-Kruz, as well as the following track from One Be Lo & Longshot.

One Be Lo and Longshot – Learn

The Tape vs. RQM “Innocent (e.stonji Remix)”

How many acts can say they’ve shared the stage with Funkstörung and Kool Keith on separate occasions, but played songs both audiences relate to? While post-rock flavored with hip-hop is one of the more unlikely pairings in the game of genre-bending, The Tape and RQM seem to have a grasp on their sound. The former mixes hip-hop beats with scratchy bleeps mournful synths, while RQM rounds things out with his spoken word and MC skills.

The Tape vs. RQM – Innocent (e.stonji Remix)

Arc Lab “So Much For Surprises”

Medard Fischer, known to his fans as Arc Lab, squeezes a lot out of his music software on his latest album No Spectre. Fischer ensures that 99.9% of the album remains digital, and sculpts his tracks into a series of errant melodies, fractured percussion, and sheer experiment. The result is a battle between emotion and machine, and a chance for the n5MD imprint to take a trip back to its electronic roots.

Arc Lab – So Much For Surprises

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