How A Dragon Skeleton Broke Mat McHugh's Neck

Mat McHugh refuses to box himself in. Yet he's conscious of his audience who, in 2016, sees him predominantly as an acoustic musician. "I know a lot of guys who I get lumped in with, they play guitar and they sing amazingly but that's all they do. I'm not really ever that guy," he says decidedly. His rule is simple: "If you're going to do something over to the left and a bit strange, label it something else." This is what has taken him from The Beautiful Girls at the turn of the millennium, through his solo work and now into the realms of digital dancehall, dub and hip hop.

You can hear him stretching the limits of his solo identity on 2015's Waves, but that's "me being wary of not going too far. It could go way further out than that," he laughs. "But I always am conscious that there's a point that once you go over it ceases to become anything people will recognise or associate with.

"About a year ago I had this crazy dream that I was pulling this black, mini dog slash dragon shaped skeleton out of my mouth..."

"I love [acoustic]. I wouldn't play any music or song if I didn't actually like it... But I also think if you're in the music business and it's your career there's almost a responsibility to communicate with people on a certain level... If you create an image based on having a couple of records that come from a particular place, maybe it'll be jarring for people if you go too far."

In-keeping with his 'rule', he worked alongside two German electronic artists The Yum Yum's in Berlin's Riverside Studios to reimagine Pocket Full Of Shells and High Up from Waves. Further work on the project he's planning to roll out under the moniker Seaside Highlife.

But spreading himself thin over the last year came at a price. "It's pretty weird, I can tell you but I dunno if you'll believe me," he intrigues. "About a year ago I had this crazy dream that I was pulling this black, mini dog slash dragon shaped skeleton out of my mouth... and when it came out, it felt in my dream like I was completely contented, I just felt like the stress was gone. It must have been minutes after that when I woke up and I couldn't move my arm. Couldn't turn my neck... The crack in my vertebrae [from a past motorbike injury] had opened up and the disk had just exploded overnight, in bed. And it had pressed on my spinal chord so it was like a mini paralysis."

Threatened with the permanent loss of the use of his right arm, he ignored the advice of specialists and forewent surgery for meditation and holistic treatment. "I felt like my brain and my way of being had caused this to happen. I felt in that moment I became free, my body became broken. And I thought 'If my body did it, then I can undo it'... now I'm 99 percent normal." 

Rather than looking to past projects, he will continue to move forward artistically, "leaving Mat McHugh alone" and closing the door on The Beautiful Girls: "It exists in a particular time and place for me. For me to go 'I'll make a record that sounds like we did in 2003' is disingenuous. I don't think I could make a recorded that sounded like that again."