Williwaw is a violent squall, and also a sonic malestrom produced by the two hands, two feet, four strings, and many forms of amplification under the direction of Bill Whitmer. Since a rainy day in Champaign, Illinois in 1994, williwaw has, as Monica Kendrick wrote, “nimbly piloted his unlikely vehicle into uncharted territory again and again, making pulsating, variegated, beautiful noise” (Chicago Reader, 2006). Williwaw also curates the loose, enthralling collective of nimble fingers and nylong strings known not so cleverly as the williwaw ensemble. Williwaw is a recovering ethnomusicologist who masquerades as a hearing scientist, whatever that exactly is; he used to play trumpet, once studied music theory, and knows too much about ‘ukuleles and auditory psychophysics to be such a fruitless loaf. Both williwaw and the ensemble have performed in counterpoint to many fine silent reels, including moving pictures by Bruckman, Clair, Dovshenko, Horne, Kennedy, Messmer and Pudovkin, among others.

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