Drew Mulholland & Garden Gate Night Blooming Flowers
Vinyl Catalogue Number: SUBEX00160
Download Catalogue Number: SUBEX00161
General Release Date: 23/08/2024
'Night Blooming Flowers' tells the curious tale of a botanist in search of a rare and precious flower, said only to bloom during the hours of darkness. Although a diligent and learned practitioner of science, the botanist is nevertheless unfamiliar with local lore. This proves to be their downfall.
An inadvertent misstep into the bounds of a fairy ring, triggers a series of encounters with all manner of strange and magical sights, as the path gradually leads deeper into the darkling woods.
In the closing piece, day breaks and relief sets in, only for our hapless protagonist to find themselves rendered invisible to the everyday world, trapped 'betwixt between', consigned to a parallel dimension of supernatural enchantment.
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Originally a tantalising transatlantic postal collaboration between hauntological mischief-maker Drew Mulholland, and American baroque psych/horror savant Timmi Meskers (Garden Gate), 'Night Blooming Flowers' brews up a series of iterative compositions where each artist would share a foundation and the other would expand or edit, folding back and forth, accruing and removing layers until a shared sense of completion was reached.
Reflecting on the creative process, Timmi recalls:
"I had recently re-read Emma Wilby's amazing 'Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits', and certain themes seemed reflected in the pieces; we decided to infuse the track titles with elements of early modem British witchcraft and magic as the works ranged from the playful to the genuinely chilling.
A series of covers were designed which reflected the various tones and moods of the works, and the piece that we landed on was an homage to Danbury Press's "The Supernatural" series, a formative collection of books for both of us. We were both heavily influenced by the paranormal and witchcraft books of the 1960s and '70s occult revival, and the track titles and design reflect these sensibilities accordingly".
