Christopher Willits – Gravity (2022) [FLAC 24bit/48kHz]

Christopher Willits – Gravity (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 39:15 minutes | 397 MB | Genre: Electronic, Ambient
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ghostly International

Christopher Willits returns to Ghostly International with Gravity, his latest exploration in ambient music with deep listening intention. Composed during a period of change and challenge, it is the artist’s most personal and refined work to date. “This music is a tool for slowing down, feeling, and healing,” Willits encourages listeners to seek an immersive playback setting for the spatial audio recordings (via headphones or speakers) and to let the sound guide the mind’s intrinsic need to process.

“For me, this album is like a prayer of gratitude; feeling the curves of life, listening to the balance, acknowledging the ongoing journey. Every piece is a hymn filled with the balance of acceptance and perseverance, grief and inspiration.”Over the past two decades, the pioneering composer, guitarist, producer, and visual artist has navigated the field of contemporary ambient music with curiosity and ambition, realizing an acclaimed body of work that includes collaborative projects with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Taylor Deupree, and Tycho. This driven-yet-gentle devotion to deep listening led him to the forefront of cutting-edge spatial audio production, a nascent technology at the time of his 2017 album Horizon, now adopted widely across the music industry. Beyond his craft, Willits has helped build a community through the immersive listening spaces and open-source tools of the nonprofit he directs, Envelop.

The ideas for Gravity first emerged in 2018 as Willits recorded guitar improvisations in a temple in Gifu, Japan. Following the completion of Sunset, he resumed work in 2020 from his recording space in California — utilizing his custom Moog guitar, bass synth, bass guitar, field recordings, and voice — and finalized the set during stays with family in Kansas City and Hawai’i. There was a gravity imbuing each session; processing the impending flux of the world while supporting his mother during her declining health. His natural response was to create music that soothes and facilitates a state of relaxation and clarity.

Lead single “Crescent” lights up the night sky as Gravity’s radiant and reassuring entry point. Washes of guitar harmonize with abstracted vocals from April George of DC’s April + VISTA. After a particularly trying studio stretch when his mind was elsewhere, Willits recalls taking a break outside: “I look up, see the crescent moon, that kind where it’s so bright but you can see the other side of the moon. I know everything is as it is, all flowing and so beautiful to be within.”

For the next track, “Regrowth,” Willits tips the perspective, visualizing the “mending of a shattered heart.” These two rotating scenes initiate a panoramic scan that outlines our human awareness from sky to earth, macro to micro — all underscored by Willits’ photo series from the settled dust of White Sands. The artist carefully populates this space, adding and subtracting Ambisonic layers and elemental flourishes to orient the listener, like the rainfall of “Endless” and the arpeggiated sun rays of “Spiraling.” There’s a wave-like cadence and flow across the collection; a sense of stability afforded by gravity or the lack thereof, as much a resource as it is an expression.

Tracklist:

1-01. Christopher Willits – Crescent (05:51)
1-02. Christopher Willits – Regrowth (05:03)
1-03. Christopher Willits – Origin (04:04)
1-04. Christopher Willits – Unknown (01:01)
1-05. Christopher Willits – Endless (05:41)
1-06. Christopher Willits – Curve (01:13)
1-07. Christopher Willits – Spiraling (05:58)
1-08. Christopher Willits – Tunnels (10:22)

Download:

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