Max Leonard Hitchings

Transient Constellations 2010

2010-12-24T03:22:00.000-08:00

It's been a great year for TRANSIENT CONSTELLATIONS since our first show on the WINTER SOLSTICE 2009 with TIMOTHY C HOLEHOUSE / LION LIES DOWN / D0US / PAULINE AMOS / POPPY JACKSON. Here's a list of most of the shows:

FEBRUARY 12TH - HORACIO POLLARD / CEMENTIMENTAL / LION LIES DOWN / STANLEY SCHTINTER

MARCH 19TH - DIETER MÜH / PLURALS / LION LIES DOWN / RAJINDER / POPPY JACKSON

APRIL 15TH - ABOULOMANIA / WARTBITER / SUMOCLOUD CARDBOARD ARTS

MAY 20TH - CONTENT NULLITY / CEMENTIMENTAL / RYAN JORDAN / EZCATON VISUAL ARTIST

JUNE 17TH - BBBLOOD / TEAM BRICK / SKAT INJECTOR

JUNE 24TH - KYLIE MINOISE / TIMOTHY C HOLEHOUSE / POLITICAL NECROSHEMALEBOB / OLCHAR E. LINDSANN X CEMENTIMENTAL

JULY 15TH - CHORA / VULTURES QUARTET / SLOPPY SECONDS / THESE FEATHERS HAVE PLUMES

AUGUST 19TH - VINDICATRIX / KAYA KING / THE ZERO MAP / ÁINE O' DWYER & SUZANNE WALSH / H_Z_L

SEPTEMBER 16TH - BLUE SABBATH BLACK FIJI / JAHIZ / LION LIES DOWN

OCTOBER 16TH - TRANSIENT CONSTELLATIONS ALL-DAYER WITH: REALICIDE / SHITMAT / CEMENTIMENTAL / BLUE SABBATH BLACK FIJI / GYMNASTIC DECOMPOSITION / ATOMÇK / SKAT INJECTOR / GLAND / NWODTLEM / BETTY / POLLUTIVE STATIC / JUNKIE KUT / DEEPKISS 720 / BBBLOOD / THE DIGITARIAT / CHEAPMACHINES / DJ MINDGRIND / MISS VK / DJ CHOPSTIX / POPPY JACKSON

OCTOBER 21ST - KERÄNEN / ZOÄT-AON / CHEAPMACHINES / MEATGRINDER / CEMENTIMENTAL

OCTOBER 31ST - RAISE THE HALLOWS HALLOWEEN SHOW WITH: DIATRIBES / TEMPERATURES / BOLIDE / LION LIES DOWN

NOVEMBER 18TH - HOUNDS OF HATE / DER WARST / 10 / GIRL MOUNTAIN / SLUSHY GUTS

DECEMBER 16TH - OSCILLATING INNARDS / BBBLOOD / ROVAR17 / DUNCAN HARRISON

There is plenty of documentation of most of these, which will be made available via our new website in 2011.(If you have any, please contact us at info@transientconstellations.co.uk).

Thanks to everybody that made it down to these shows and made them memorable, see you all in the new year!

Max xx

TRANSIENT CONSTELLATIONS

EXPERIMENTAL / NOISE / WEIRD / BRILLIANT MUSIC & ARTS IN LONDON
http://www.transientconstellations.co.uk

Not A Horse

2010-09-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

Not A Horse

August Transient Constellations

2010-07-25T03:41:00.001-07:00

THURSDAY 19TH AUGUST

*********************************************************

VINDICATRIX
http://www.myspace.com/vindicatrix

KAYA KING
http://www.myspace.com/kayakingg

THE ZERO MAP
http://www.myspace.com/thezeromap

ÁINE O' DWYER & SUZANNE WALSH
http://www.myspace.com/aineodwyer

H_Z_L
http://www.myspace.com/hazelladadaduh

**********************************************************

8PM - MIDNIGHT
£5

July Transient Constellations

2010-07-25T03:33:00.001-07:00

Poster for Transient Constellations at The Others, 15th July 2010

Chora
Vultures Quartet
Sloppy Seconds
These Feathers Have Plumes

JUNE TRANSIENT CONSTELLATIONS - TWO EVENTS

2010-05-22T03:57:00.000-07:00

This is the poster I made for the next two Transient Constellations events which are both taking place at The Others, Stoke Newington in June.

May Transient Constellations

2010-04-24T04:28:00.000-07:00

Amazing lineup for Transient Constellations on May 20th 2010.

This poster is derived from a Christian magazine given to me by my good friend Stevie called The Spiritual Healer (December 1973 edition, Vol. 21 No. 12 apparently) - originally 12 1/2p!

Transient Constellations will now be every third thursday of the month at The Others, Stoke Newington

April Transient Constellations

2010-04-24T04:10:00.001-07:00

I made this poster for Transient Constellations on 15th April 2010 at The Others, Stoke Newington.
I sketched the naked man with his two dogs on the back of an envelope on the train, then scanned and coloured on Photoshop.
The event was a success - F.M.G. sadly had to pull out at the last minute so I stepped in and did a drone / harsh noise set with contact mic and knackered cymbal, Wart Biter made lots of sub-aquatic sounding squelchy synths and percussion and The A Band (listed here as Aboulomania) wore parts of and eventually destroyed the Cardboard Temple erected by Sumocloud Cardboard Arts in a glorious, Dadaist cacophany. Watching this spectacle, I felt that it completely encapsulated what Transient Constellations is all about.

March Transient Constellations

2010-03-05T10:10:00.000-08:00

The idea for this poster came to me in a dream.

Fetish for Love Shark

2010-02-14T04:42:00.000-08:00

This CD was made for my friend Love Shark, the music consists of one 21 minute track, which starts off quite ambient and ends quite harsh. The whole track is made from a tiny sample of my track Awake In Tokyo Night (which you can hear on my myspace) so I suppose it qualifies as a remix if you like. I'll try to upload some audio when I can. Mx

Transient Constellations presents: Horacio Pollard, Cementimental, Sloppy Seconds and more

2010-02-04T03:43:00.000-08:00

I'm putting this event on at The Ivy House in Peckham Rye on Friday 12th February, and performing with my band Sloppy Seconds, a group of non-dimensional rabbits who seek to dissolve notions of time and space through a 'sonic smudge' of noise and performance rituals. Sounds and more info here: http://www.myspace.com/sloppysecondsbanned

Quicksilver

2010-01-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

Photograph of semen and glitter on hand.

Fetish for ian england

2010-01-14T07:26:00.000-08:00

I made this tape for my good friend ian england, who likes royal memorabilia. I have fond memories of drinking tea round his house from a Queen Elizabeth II teacup.

The sound on the tape consists of a midi version of God Save The Queen which I downloaded, looped and filtered through my faithful Boss ME50 multi-effects pedal in real-time. As more and more effects are heaped on, the midi track is constantly at the risk of disappearing, resurfacing regularly only to be submersed again in noise.

check his book out here: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1117684?alt=polperro%2C+as+listed+under+Fine+Art+Photography

Untitled (Snowflake) - Christmas Card 2009

2009-12-30T04:35:00.000-08:00

Photo of frozen semen on card.

I made christmas cards with this image on the front this year.
The message inside reads 'Season's Greetings'.

Send me a message if you would like me to post you one free of charge.

Fetish For Time Drag

2009-12-11T02:25:00.000-08:00

I made this Harsh Noise CDr for my good friend Time Drag.
It contains two 15 minute tracks of abrasive, metallic Noise made entirely with the circular blender attachments pictured, one contact-mic and my Boss ME-50 multi-effects pedal.
As you can see, the instrumentation (or part of it at least) doubles as the packaging.
As Time Drag makes noise too, he may well use this instrument in his own work, or simply enjoy it as an object.
I feel that this is the first fetish that I have made that contains the potential to transcend the statuses of 'object' or 'record', without explicitly being a 'tool'.

Winter Solstice event 2009

2009-12-03T11:51:00.000-08:00

I am putting this show on with Anthony from God Don't Like It.

I hope to put a bunch of shows on in 2010 under the name Transient Constellations, which I think neatly sums up my interests in bricolage/hybridity, the semi-automatic juxtapositions found in the cut-up, exquisite corpse and the mixtape, fetishism and the conscious perceptual shift, interference patterns and Hakim Bey's Temporary Autonomous Zone and how these concerns relate to curation and programming.

Come along.

33 Dream Envelopes (2003)

2009-12-02T12:44:00.000-08:00

Gift for Stevie

2009-11-28T09:01:00.000-08:00

Another gift for Stevie.
This tape contains two sides of original music composed with him in mind. In using the concept of Stevie as a score, in fetishising him in this way and channeling that energy into the creation of a literal fetish and presenting it to him as a gift is nothing short of an act of devotion, mirroring religious depictions of deities found in many different cultures.
In this respect then, there are two gifts present here - the literal object and the act of the creation of the object itself.
When we allow a single concept (which can be anything at all, from a person or animal to an abstract number) to flood our minds, we perform a sincere devotion to that concept. As an aside, it is worth noting that this goes for intense feelings of hatred as much as love.
I believe that this act of fetishism actually changes our minds, re-enforcing existing memes and associations or creating new ones.
Thus we experience a subjective paradigmatic or perceptual shift, a psychedelic experience similar to dreaming or meditation.
It is from this fertile new point of perception, this altered state brought about by that strangest of drugs - an idea, that this devotional work springs from.

its immaterial

2009-11-28T08:47:00.000-08:00

I made this defaced record with collaged sleeve a gift for my good friend Stevie, an avid collector and fetishist of limited edition vinyl, books and curious objects.

Astaroth As Baal Devours The World

2009-11-28T04:54:00.000-08:00

Boy With Tentacle

2009-11-28T04:38:00.000-08:00

Goldsmiths Fetish

2009-11-27T15:42:00.000-08:00

I recently attended an open day at Goldsmiths College. After the talks, I went for a wonder and found a section of wall with loose pieces of stone. I pocketed this tiny piece of Goldsmiths and took it home.
In a magical act of fetishism and devotion to the institution, a kind of knock at the door, I have gilded the stone with gold leaf and my semen.
In ejaculating on the stone and applying gold in this manner, I am both folding the concept of Goldsmiths into my consciousness and actually binding a part of my self to the stone. This communion with the stone, a conversation, a collaboration, an exchange, and the fetishisation of the stone and the institution it represents is just a literalisation of the psychic fusion of the concepts of myself and of Goldsmiths.
The stone has hungrily drunk up all of the semen I have given it.
The bottom picture is post-gilding, showing an ongoing devotion.

Handjob

2009-11-19T23:09:00.000-08:00

It's a memory.

Nemim and Haflanim at Space Age City

2009-08-10T06:09:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

I will be showing work at Space Age City at The Windmill, Brixton on Saturday 15th August 2009.

I am showing a collection of alien reliquaries called Nemim and Haflanim.

The esoteric objects are accompanied by museum style text which draws on science fiction, pseudo-scientific / medical Latin and neological / nonsense language.

Space Age City is the 2009 Colour Ride All-Dayer, with music from:

STELLAR OM SOURCE
JAZZFINGER
MOTHERFUCKING
EL-G
BLOOD STEREO
MUTANT APE
ROSE NICHOLS DUO
CAM DEAS
KK/KK
+ THE A BAND & SPOONO BUSKING OUTSIDE

The event starts at 2pm and is £7

Here's some event info: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=101944944309&ref=ts

And you can get tickets here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/50177

Thanks for listening, hopefully see you there!

Thanks

Max

Xykogen – Musica Universalis CD

2009-06-30T04:51:00.000-07:00

An interesting mixed bag of goodies from this London based industrial group, who handed this CD (recorded live at The Foundry) out for free outside Throbbing Gristle’s recent show at Heaven.

Synth squelch, reverbed vocals and music box twinkle mix with woodwind loops on the first track In Girium Imus Nocte, some eerie reversed sounds and lightly processed samples of trickling water, CD skips, 8-bit noodles and disconcerting heavy breathing on the title track.

The rest of the album is even more eclectic, taking in distorted punky guitars, what sounds like a computer game soundtrack, drum machines and Metal-style vocals.

Ki / Qiyamat (most of the tracks have two names) is a great soundscape in the Dark Ambient tradition, with static hiss and unidentifiable rumblings.

Album closer Behold, The Silver Star / Et Consumimur Igni is steeped in reverbed fuzz, with occasional bursts of crazy fast beats which soon dissolve into an atmospheric dirge but track 6, Work Will Make You Free / We Rip This Symbol From The Void is definitely the standout track of the album, utilising samples of Holocaust survivors speaking about their experiences, which eventually get consumed by wave upon wave of siren-like oscillations.

Every track on Musica Universalis is sufficiently different to make this album a rewarding and enjoyable listen.

www.xykogen.com

Ryan Jordan, Ampersand, One True Dog, Vultures, Cheap Machines (12.6.09)

2009-06-25T09:56:00.000-07:00

The Ivy House is an interesting venue for an experimental music night by promoters Noise = Noise. Located in suburban Peckham and featuring two back rooms – one, marked Salsa Lessons every Wednesday or words to that effect, serving as the venue for tonight’s gig and the other containing a pool table and a dartboard. In the front, kids run around while men drink their pints and watch the cricket.

In between shrieks of white hot feedback, we hear the landlady asking if her kids have eaten their dinner.

In my book, and I think I speak for most of the event’s (deliberate) attendees, this culture clash is fantastic and something to revel in. I suspect, however, that the pub’s regulars might not be so interested in the crossover, if the fingers in ears and vacant stares are anything to go by.

Cheap Machines kicks the night off with a few sheets of nasty noise but doesn’t play for very long. Some interesting textures emerge, and I feel that given more time it could go somewhere special, but due to time constraints I have to say it doesn’t quite get there tonight.

Vultures weave extremely atmospheric music drawing on the darker, more unsettling elements of bands like Set Fire To Flames and The Hafler Trio, coming across like an alternative soundtrack to David Lynch’s Eraserhead. It becomes teeth-shreddingly painful when one of them drags a steel jazz brush across sheet metal. I find myself thinking that it’s a slight shame that he is the only member of this four-strong unit who seems to have given any thought to his performance visually - theatrically bowing cymbals and metal bowls and lurching over his kit while his band members stare gormlessly into their laptops and pedals. The sound they conjure up is awesome, but this understated / lacklustre performance style is both rife in the Noise scene and uninspiring.

One True Dog are an intriguing proposition, using laptop with live percussion and fuzzed out bass-guitar to form the funky grooves that are a vehicle for their vocalist’s (according to their myspace, one Zolan Quobble) spoken word poetry / rants. His oblique lyrics and middle-aged angst immediately bring to mind Mark E. Smith of The Fall, although sometimes the subject matter does become more lucid, describing a bleak, Kafkaesque environment of alienation and confusion.

Ampersand are quite remarkable, eschewing the standard issue laptops for an interesting assortment of re-appropriated items ranging from the strings from a gutted upright piano to power drills. Add to this a massively detuned bass, crackling reel to reel tape, radio static, metal piping and a massive gong, and you’ve got yourself a band that has the potential to be overindulgent and grandiose. Thankfully Ampersand are able to conduct their sonic explorations with a strong sensitivity and intuition, each member listening intently to the input of the others.

The headline act for tonight is most definitely not for the fainthearted. Ryan Jordan, continuing his ongoing experimentation with strobe lighting and motion sensor pads, stares directly into a strobe light with his face wrapped in black fabric, arms outstretched, clutching a knot of wires in each fist. The strobe calls to mind Brion Gysin’s Dream Machines and when combined with the cushioning, enveloping noise, presents the potential for a similarly psychedelic experience.

Links:

Cheap Machines: http://cmx.org.uk/

Vultures: www.myspace.com/justvultures

One True Dog: www.myspace.com/onetruedog

Zolan Quobble: www.zolanquobble.co.uk

Ampersand: http://ampersand.tv/

Ryan Jordan: http://doc.gold.ac.uk/~ma701rj/

Que? (tape for Magda)

2009-06-13T07:20:00.000-07:00

I made this tape for my friend Magda.
I’m really into gift giving, it forms a large part of my practice. I like making things in editions of one, for a specific person – in some cases literally composing original music for them from scratch. I don’t try to make the music about them as such, and the intention is not always to make something to their tastes, although that is often a small factor. My approach is more abstract, I like to hold the person’s image in my mind and compose something that way – using my mental image of them as a score or mimetic trigger; as an aid to composition.
In this case, I didn’t compose music from scratch, choosing instead to make a mix-tape for Magda. I made it on a Sony TCM-939 Cassette-Corder, with a Samson Q Tom drum microphone against a Squire SP.10 practice amp, streaming footage from YouTube.
It included Balinese Gamelan, Korean Pop, Polish documentaries on Tom Waits and Unblack Metal interspersed with snippets of Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks theme, the theme from famous Polish TV series Czterej pancerni i pies and live footage of Seattle’s Blood Brothers and the UK’s Tight Meat Duo, among lots of other bits and bobs.
All of the artwork apart from the ‘instructions for putting on goggles’ and the polish phone-sex advert is made from cuttings taken from The Guardian, The Observer or The Stool Pigeon.
I gave it to her in the apartment we stayed in on our recent trip to Primavera Sound in Barcelona, after an intense discussion about abortion and an even more intense game of Platitude Charades, the invention of my good friend and frequent collaborator David Shewry.
She liked it.

Duo Capfre – Bustropfèdic 3”

2009-06-08T03:16:00.000-07:00

This hand illustrated 3” from Spain’s Duo Capfre (formerly Duo Caphre) starts like Tom Waits beatboxing in a Dadaist babble submerged in layers of static, obscure bass hums and electronic squiggles and eventually finds its way into a freaky, Krauty groove.
The second track is even more surreal, taking a darker turn with kids singing and screaming over string drones and plucks and what sounds like a vocal digitally stretched beyond meaning, morphing into near formless reverb-laden vocals towards the end.
Both tracks seem curiously cut off, as if they are the severed tentacles of a larger beast.
An enclosed statement from the “Head of Orders” reads “Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted. Those who try to find a moral will be banished, and those who try to find argument within it, will be shot” and seems suitably Absurdist.

Thanks to Andrew Keats for translation.

Action Hero: Watch Me Fall (review)

2009-05-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

In 2008 Bristol based live artists Action Hero made A Western, in which they deconstructed the Spaghetti Western genre and presented it as a collection of clichés, drolly delivered and acted out with a few props such as playing cards and plenty of bright red tomato ketchup.
A similar method is employed here, with the duo this time turning their attention to American Daredevilry. Motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel is a continuous touchstone during the performance, his name adorning the crash helmet used.
The audience is split into two, with a long rectangular area forming the stage, on which sits a bike ramp.
The performance begins with the Daredevil holding his Beautiful Assistant by the hand and punching his fists in the air. This is Machismo writ large.
‘Dangerous stunts’, are preceded by hype and followed by the Daredevil’s tantrums and, once, a crushingly tender weep in his assistants arms.
At the centre of the work is a tension, a constant power-play – he will later pour a litre of coke over her head.
Nonetheless, when the big stunt finally approaches, it is the girl in her star-spangled blue dress that helps him into his red knee guards and when the inevitable fall comes and he lies crumpled in a heap, she is the one who tends to him and helps him to stand.
The strength of this work comes from the duo’s ability to tease poignant moments out of their chosen subject, to expose flaws inherent in the logic of a system and to question the actions and motivations behind its denizens.
Watch Me Fall asks why people feel compelled to risk their lives, suggesting in the final couple of minutes that it may be an attempt to bring order out of a chaotic life with an uncertain future.

23.01.08

2009-01-23T10:26:00.001-08:00

Although the sentiment behind this is obviously romantic, I also like that it's true on a cellular level - the things we come into contact with physically, whether they be through choice or accident, do change our physical structure. Irreversibly. I've always been interested in this notion, and the passing of time and how it affects us. Of course, it also applies to the mundane - I've never been the same since I did/didn't step on a crack in the pavement. But when it's applied to human interaction, our bodies can be read as a facinating record of everything we've ever done. If this all seems like navel gazing it's no bad thing, because navels are actually amazing - my navel is a physical document of one of my first interactions with a being other than my mother. It's also a document of the first time I had to breathe on my own.

02.01.09

2009-01-02T12:00:00.000-08:00

Misery Men

What can i say? Misery Men are a real problem for some people so this piece could be considered controversial.

01.01.09

2009-01-01T12:56:00.000-08:00

James Bond

A somewhat naive and confused reading of the phenomenon and international franchise that is James Bond - it's so so so popular and yet I find him such a hard character to relate to. I think he is kind of emotionally detached and a bit psychotic. And all the action movie stuff, it's so intense and I can't really find any genuine relevance to my life. OK obviously I'm not a man of international espionage, but surely it's not just spies that watch it?! I wonder what the James Bonds of this world make of it actually. And if James Bond were real, what would he do on his days off? You know what I reckon? He'd cry.