Equally capable of writing concise, catchy little pop songs, twisted psychedelic explorations, and sprawling prog rock improvisations, the North London resident is like a one-man combination of XTC, Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, and the Bevis Frond.

Remarkably, for a one-man band who plays almost all of the instruments on his records, Dillingham came late to music, not recording his first songs until he was already into his thirties. His first album was a limited-edition self-released cassette, 1989's Stalking the Wily Chub, with a homemade cover designed by his brother, music journalist and psychedelic poster artist Mick Dillingham. (Dillingham has something of an obsession with fish, which regularly appear in his album titles and cover art.) Brother Mick took an even more active role in Dillingham's next project, the Bizarrdavarks, a trio featuring the brothers and Bevis Frond mastermind Nick Saloman that placed two tracks on 1990's Woronzoid, a double-album compilation on Saloman's Woronzow label. Saloman and Mick Dillingham also appeared on Dillingham's next recording project, the Saloman-produced Art Into Dust, which was supposed to appear on Woronzow in 1990 but was shelved, eventually appearing on the Voiceprint label in late 1992 with the addition of one later track, a nearly half-hour jam on Pink Floyd's classic "Interstellar Overdrive."

Dillingham's association with Voiceprint, a label associated with the '70s Canterbury Scene spearheaded by the Soft Machine and Hatfield and the North, began in 1991, when Caravan keyboardist Richard Sinclair invited Dillingham to record an album with himself, drummer Andy Ward (Camel), and reedman Jimmy Hastings (Caravan, Soft Machine, National Health). The resulting Wilde Canterbury Dream received rapturous reviews among prog rock diehards, but Dillingham's next two releases were a pair of more immediately accessible psychedelic pop EPs in the style of XTC's Dukes of Stratosphear side project: the Norwegian release A Dash of Haddock (1993), and the German release Arthur Woodcote (Is His Name) (1994). Dillingham's next two albums, both released in 1994, re-emphasized the prog side of his musical personality, although the live Radio Session included a few '60s-style freakbeat rave-ups as well. Vast Empty Spaces (produced by Peter Giles of the legendary Giles, Giles, and Fripp) marked a reunion with Ward, with Curved Air's Mike Wedgewood and Anthony Alridge of the jazzy and eccentric Skaboosh! contributing bass and violin, respectively.

With the exception of occasional extended improvisatory workouts, Dillingham then retreated from progressive epics into a marginally simpler and considerably poppier form of psychedelic pop. The self-released Astral Whelks, which included contributions not only from Ward but Ward's Chrysathemums bandmate, Yukio Yung, was the first evidence of this new focus, but it was 1995's Sgt. Kipper, with its priceless cover portraits of Dillingham, Yung, and Ward in Sgt.Pepper-style satin outfits, that delivered Dillingham's most consistently poppy and groovy set of tunes.

Perhaps that career highlight was enough for Dillingham, because after six extremely prolific years, he sharply curtailed his recording projects after Sgt. Kipper. Two rather aimless self-released cassettes came out in 1995 and 1996, Mock Opera and Other Delights and Nostratoddus, followed by a final EP on Germany's Pink Lemon imprint, The Twelve Breams of Doctor Sardine and Us. Other than a CD of loose ends, Odds and Todds, that came out in an ultra-limited edition of five copies, Dillingham has released nothing since 1996. ~ Stewart Mason