Solo Work
Improvised and recorded over two days in February 2021, Right Into The River represents a pining for the sea and for space, and an urge to use melody to articulate the inner. At the edges of sound, it explores breath and texture, melding flute with electronics and effects, sometimes layered up and morphed into alien pipes. Other tracks are more transparent; clear flute invocations of the wider world.
Released on TBC Editions in November 2021, it comes with a screen printed cover based on Tina’s drawings and a full colour insert print of one of Tina’s watercolours.
CANOPY Commission
I was a commissioned artist for CANOPY’s Phone Box project 2019-2021. I explored underground in the Forest of Dean area, recording sounds, stories, and capturing the history of the caves and mines. The project was due to culminate in a 10 mile trail across phone boxes in the Forest, where artists would place their pieces. I had intended to compose a sound piece using field recordings, instruments, voices – as visitors picked up the phone they’d be given an opportunity to pause and be taken into an intimate underground realm, expanded with stories and the music inspired by them. Sadly the project has been placed on pause due to COVID, but my work in progress and reflections on my research are available here.
Harpoon
A live improvisation project with Aron Ward. The duo came about through Tina and Aron’s experimentation with Korg’s Volcabeats drum machines. Expanded via the use of various effects and pedals, their sound is raw, layered and often unpredictable.
Harpoon released ‘Permission Fist’ via Aphelion Editions in May 2019. Available as CD or cassette tape, the sleeve artwork was made by Tina. Order the album here.
Viridian Ensemble
Comprised of Dali De Saint Paul (Vocal), Tina Hitchens (flute), Liz Muir (cello), Caitlin Alais Callahan (double bass), Esme Betamax (percussion) and Laura Phillips (waterphone & images), Viridian are an ethereal blend which re-imagines folkloric forms and tropes of femininity.
Improvisation of both sound and image (digital & analogue) produce a dialogic blend of textural depths.
Dissociative states, keening, and the supernatural inspirit the ensemble; each performance evokes utterances, nonsensical languages, and trans species forms of communication through collective rhythm, tone and resonance.
Our ensemble plays with improvisational visuals as the score. For radio broadcasts we have performed live experimental improvisation sets.
Halftone
Formed in early 2016, Halftone explore the conventions and boundaries of their traditional instruments through unconventional techniques. Caitlin Alais Callahan (double bass), Tina Hitchens (flute), Yvonna Magda (violin), and Hannah Marshall (cello) translocate from the solo virtuosic tradition to enter a more exploratory, irreverent and collectively-driven realm. The foursome create compelling vocabularies and organic sonic architectures that consider the dynamics of space, subtlety, silence and unity.
‘(Halftone) play an unsettling, absently beautiful post-classical music evoking wind in the trees, unresolved conversations and difficulties around corners’ – Misfit City.
Tisla
Tisla is Tina’s solo songs project. Small songs, all written, performed and recorded by Tina.
‘Up, Out’ was released in October 2020
Pigeon
Pigeon is Matthew Grigg – Guitar, Amplifier, Tina Hitchens – Flute, Dominic Lash – Double Bass, Yvonna Magda – Violin. ‘At the Well’ was recorded live 15th November 2019.
Grass Sends Out Runners
A distanced collaboration made during 2019 with drummer Matthew Lovett, via file swapping and recording improvised responses to each other’s sounds.
Hokkett
Formed in 2017, Tina plays in Hokkett with violinist Yvonna Magda and baritone saxophonist Helen Papaioannou. They play skronky / wonky riffs, snippets of melodies and hints of harmonies, woven together through improvisation.
‘Helen, Tina and Yvonna use the baritone sax, flute and violin to manipulate the space between, using it as an extra member: Stretching the silence out before crushing it flat with kneejerk riffs and torn rhythms’.
Helen: www.helenpapaioannou.com
Yvonna: www.yvonnamagda.wordpress.com
Goldfinch
Tina participated in various film events by artist Benjamin A Owen. Performance events included Spike Island in Bristol (2015), Exeter PHOENIX (2015) as part of the Artists Moving Image Commission supported by Arts Council England, Plymouth Arts Weekender (2016), and Trinity Arts Centre Bristol (2016).
Amalgams
‘Artists Tina Hitchens, Liam McConaghy, Ellen Southern, Dominic Lash and Hannah Marshall and Film Curator Kim Knowles were invited by ONOMATO to collaborate on a new body of sound and film for this unconventional venue. AMALGAMS offered a rare opportunity to experience an artistic collaboration that pushed against the conventional concert format and moved into the realms of performance and art installation. The work was created over a period of three months in sessions founded on the exchange of ideas and art between these artists from varying scenes and backgrounds’.
Dots.filmband
Dots.filmband was comprised of Tina Hitchens, Timothy Tate, and Paul Jones. In 2011 they embarked on a tour with a programme of contemporary short films which they live-soundtracked with fully-composed music, part-composed pieces, and improvisations. Dots.filmband worked with mainly silent films, including different types of animation and live action, and spanning a multitude of themes.
Whitebelt
Tina was a composer and performer of synths and vocals with this wonky-math pop trio. ‘… a severely danceable mix of juddering post-punk and melodic no-wave pop… minimalist, repetitive thrills are a promise’. A single is currently available via Odd Box Records.
e.p (extended player/european park)
A film project by Benjamin A Owen, where Tina provided improvisatory input for the film’s soundscape, as well as a 2014 event at Spike Island Bristol: a film and photographic installation involving musicians playing in response to the film, the space and the audience. Other musicians were Phil Owen, Markland Starkie, Nick Harrison, Paul Jones, Ben Trinkle and George Mackenzie.
Cardiff New Music Collective (CNMC)
Tina was a co-founder of CNMC in 2003: an ensemble of mixed instruments dedicated to commissioning new music, and performing rarely heard works.
The Collective was gifted a small chamber work – Whisper – by Keith Tippett, and were later able to commission a larger work by Tippett – More Than Two Sides To A Story – with the help of Arts Council of Wales and the PRS Foundation‘s ‘New Music Works’ Scheme. CNMC also worked with composers Andrew Wilson-Dickson, Peter Reynolds, Paul Jones, Deri Roberts, Matthew Lovett.
The Collective appeared with many other artists, including Rhodri Davies, Heleen van Hagenborgh, Jez Riley French, ‘Roshi Feat. Pars Radio’, Taina Niemala, Louie O’Grady and Odysseas Constantinou.
Things Make Electric
Comprised of Tina Hitchens, Paul Jones, Matthew Lovett and Ben Owen, Things Make Electric produced composed and improvised material. In addition to releasing an EP, performances included a Society is Possible audiovisual collaboration with Nic Finch at Supernormal Festival, and a Things Make Electric vs Chameleonic improv performance at Experimentica festival 2011.
Tina Hitchens 