Christopher Willits / "Colors Shifting" Remix Contest

Creative Commons, Ghostly International and XLR8R Magazine are pleased to present the Christopher Willits / "Colors Shifting" Remix Contest. Christopher Willits — a Bay Area-based musician and multimedia artist — is offering the audio source files from the song "Colors Shifting" online under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, so that producers worldwide can use the sounds in remixes and new compositions.

How to Participate

This contest is closed to new entries.

Source Materials

Download the separated audio elements of Christopher Willits "Colors Shifting" here.

Prize

After all eligible entries have been received, Christopher Willits will select the best remix. The winning remix will be included on an XLR8R Incite CD compilation, which will be included in copies of a future issue of XLR8R Magazine.

Scoring

Entries will be judged based on the following criteria:

• Creativity (70% of overall score)
• Production quality (30% of overall score)

About Christopher Willits

Christopher Willits is a musician and multimedia artist located in San Francisco, California. Striking a delicate balance between acoustic and electronic sounds and systems, Willits manages to defy genre distinctions while still defining a sound unto his own. His numerous solo releases cover a broad spectrum of musical styles, and include one main commonality: Willits' unique use of the guitar with custom-made signal processing. This home-brewed software, along with Willits’ 6-string prowess, generates a unique real-time mixture of improvised melody and rhythm. Guitar lines and harmonies fold into each other. Notes and phrases hook and weave, creating complex patterns of interlocking rhythm, melody, and texture. On his breakthrough LP, Surf Boundaries, Willits merges the patterns of his signature guitar sound with treated strings, brass and five-part vocal harmonies for a sonic vision that draws upon elements of shoegaze, jazz, ambient and noise. The San Francisco Weekly named Willits "the center cell of a rather complex indie rock-avant-garde electronic art Venn diagram."

Willits has a vast range of collaborations he is involved in, which include bands, sound installations, and film/video projects. The North Valley Subconscious Orchestra is the project of guitarists Brad Laner and Christopher Willits, traversing a series of guitar noise sculptures and heavily processed pop songs.

Quotes

Christopher Willits: "Creative commons is helping artists forge new paths through the grey areas of digital ownership, allowing us to find appropriate boundaries of sharing our work that does not exclude creative interpretation and replication. I'm honored to be included in the CC remix project and super excited to hear what everyone comes up with."

Jeff Owens, Label Manager, Ghostly International: "Ghostly is excited to be a part of the remix contest. Creative Commons brings fans even closer to the artist and the musical process."

Ken Taylor, Managing Editor, XLR8R: "XLR8R is totally stoked to be a part of ccMixter's remix contest, as we share with Creative Commons the philosophy that artists–not companies–should maintain the greatest amount of control in how music is used–and what it might become."

Official Rules

Read the Official Rules.