The original release of Racing/ Tokyo Moon 7" released on Static Caravan.

Windmill is the recording name of 26-year old Matthew Thomas Dillon. Born and raised in Newport Pagnell, Bucks, now residing in Bedfordshire, this home counties boy makes music that stands up against the greats of American indie, with echoes of Built To Spill, Modest Mouse and Mercury Rev pervading his classic, piano-led songcraft. Windmill’s debut release Racing/Tokyo Moon is both beautiful and broken, sung in a tortured hue that’s somewhere between Wayne Coyne and Neil Young but, at the same time, all his own.

‘It was a while before I added vocals to my songs,’ he says. ‘Taking some of the instrumental tracks I had made, I just started to improvise over them. It was all natural progression.’

In fact, Dillon’s career thus far has been just that. He began song writing at sixteen when his father bought him his first keyboard. Suddenly, he had an outlet for the songs in his head. But even then, his deeply personal compositions remained private. It was 2005 before he performed for anyone. When he did begin circulating demos and performing in London, the response was instant. Tokyo Moon was the opening song on Windmill’s original demo EP, now it’s the flipside to the debut single. Hopeful and insistent, it’s the perfect companion for Racing’s powerful, aching melancholia.

‘My songs are abstract,’ says Dillon. ‘They are open to interpretation. I have subconscious images and I think I write to those. Sometimes I blend them with my own experiences, hopes and expectations. The piano riff comes first normally. Something simple, direct and melodic. Then I improvise some vocals on it. This can be quick or painfully slow. I need to feel that I have done the best with the melody. I’m verging on obsessive compulsive with the lyrics. They need to look right to me when I write them down.’

With thousands of songs in the Windmill archives, there’s plenty more epics to come. An album is already waiting in the wings and Dillon’s planning on a long career. ‘I’d like to end up as one of those songwriters you see playing piano on some obscure music show. They are 60 years old and you’ve never heard of them but when you look them up they have ten albums and it’s been their life. It’s all about experiences for me.’

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