HOW FAR TO HITCHIN
One-man multi-instrumentalist brings his basement prog pop to the masses.
“XTC ARE ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVOURITE BANDS – I JUST LOVE THEIR MELODIC SENSE.”
If you grew up in 1980s Britain, you might remember a bright green puppet with appalling nasal hygiene. Gilbert the Alien spawned a surreal Pythonesque series of sketches about British POWs in World War II called How Far To Hitchin?. You’ll certainly remember a singles chart graced by art pop gems from the likes of XTC, Talk Talk and Jellyfish.
Paul Dews, aka How Far To Hitchin, is a multiinstrumentalist operating from his basement studio. He takes his cue from those acts for his subversive slices of clever, darkly humorous progressive pop, while adding a modern sheen that will appeal to fans of Everything Everything and Bat For Lashes.
“XTC are one of my all-time favourite bands,” he divulges. “I’ve got all the albums on vinyl. I just love their melodic sense: I’m really into strong vocal melody and songs.”
His most recent release is 2016’s Easy Targets. Clocking in at just shy of 70 minutes, it’s an extremely diverse collection of keenly observed songs that have been meticulously crafted over a long period.
“There are two previous albums,” he reveals, “I’ve been doing this for years and I’ve gradually got into digital recording. These songs were a way for me to test out my engineering and production skills. They’ve come about over five or six years which probably accounts for the diverse feel of the album.”
Dews is abetted by musicians such as Saul Pewd and Wes Ladpu, and sharper readers will immediately realise that those are anagrams of Dews’ own name. He also produces all the artwork and provides art for other bands. He’s a real little British cottage industry. “Yeah,” he laughs. “I write the theme tune, sing the theme tune.”
Dews is hard at work on the follow-up which he hopes to release later this year. “It’s turning out to be a bit proggier,” he tells us. “Not by intention – it’s just working out that way. It was Genesis that first made me want to get into music in a serious way. I just love all that eldritch, intricate 12-string work and the massive soundscape they created.”
Sick Little Monsters from Easy Targets is a disturbing update of Harold The Barrel from Nursery Cryme, based on a real police report of people filming and taunting a man who was threatening to jump off a building.
Dews’ lyrics are often laugh-out-loud funny to counter such stark reality: ‘My neighbours are shitbags/They’re malevolent, malicious and nasty/ They’re simply colonic.’
“There’s quite a bit of humour in my stuff, even in the darkest moments. We’re living in a dark age,” he laments. “I’m always trying to get back to a more innocent time with my songs.
“Hitchin was a very happy place to spend one’s childhood. Planet Hitchin is somewhere
I can go and pull up memories and make them applicable to the future and to the present.” CMG