In 2006 I made an audio walk linking four locations in Exeter, South Devon, following the local folktale of Robin Redfern, AKA Red Robin Red.
In 2014, I reworked one of the tracks for a festival called Not Open Studios Exeter (itself a response to the annual festival Open Studios Exeter).
The new track A Red Bed For Robin’s Red Head was made available via the NOSE website, with map and directions for its intended listening site.
Presented now as a Bandcamp download, I hope you will
enjoy listening from home wherever you are, and perhaps
if you’re ever in Exeter, seek out the location to listen
on headphones.
- Max Leonard Hitchings, 2020
The legend:
Socially outcast due to his physical deformity, illegitimacy and strange ways, Robin finds a friend in a young boy.
The boy's parents are suspicious of the friendship, however the child continues to sneak off and play with Robin.
The pair enjoy seemingly harmless fun, until one day tragedy strikes and the young boy dies.
Robin is immediately blamed, and the townsfolk drive him down towards the river, hang him and, when this fails to kill him, wall him up in the arch of a bridge.
Robin, however, manages to survive even this ordeal, as tiny birds are able to find openings in the bricks and bring him food.
It is believed that he is still there, growing ever stronger, the bricks becoming ever looser, his heart ever blacker, biding his time, dreaming of vengeance.
Download includes liner notes, map and directions for its intended listening site.
TC0019
credits
released July 30, 2020
Max Leonard Hitchings - electric organ, computer, vocals
Photograph: Max Leonard Hitchings
Layout: Zoë Anspach
With thanks to Stuart Crewes and Not Open Studios Exeter.
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