Ocean Fire by Willits & Sakamoto

Christopher Willits and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s new release, Ocean Fire, is a sublime soundtrack for the ocean. It is an intense and stirring wash of cascading tones and textured harmony. Willits + Sakamoto surprise with rare form in this collaboration, creating a sound world unlike anything they have produced previously. Each artist has gently pulled the other into new sonic territory. Sakamoto’s gorgeous processed piano sound reflects Willits’ beautiful shimmering clusters of notes, a new aspect of Willits’ pioneering guitar/computer approach. Together, their sounds merge effortlessly, creating deep and seamless swells of gigantic melodic waves.

Ocean Fire was recorded live at Sakamoto’s studio in NYC in spring 2006. The improvisations found their final form through some further editing in the months to come, and final mastering by Clayx in Berlin. We hear the artists exploring their relationship to each other, new sounds, and the ocean’s boundless force and importance. This release is dedicated to the healing and restoration of our fragile oceans.

Sakamoto is a living legend in music. His numerous releases in YMO, and his grammy award-willing solo work has inspired two generations of fans and artists. Christopher Willits is a young talented artist who has shown he can do just about anything. In the late-nineties Willits began integrating his guitar playing with unique custom digital processing, and has since been instrumental in redefining the sound palette of the guitar. Overlapping all forms of music, sound, and visual art, Willits’ work defies genre and retains a presence of it’s own.12k is proud to release this work that pairs one of its core artists with a legendary composer.

12k is a New York based experimental music label run by artist Taylor Deupree that has decisively defined and developed its own concept of minimalism in the realms of experimental and ambient music since 1997.

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