There I was listening to “Night Blooming Flowers” by Drew Mulholland & Garden Gate and I got to thinking what’s it all about, Alfie. I don’t often get Cilla Black moments – and you youngsters can use the Google thing to look up who she was – but there seemed to be a strange, almost monochrome, relevance to this unexpected confluence of thought.
I would not go as far as to call anything that Drew Mullholland does - Garden Gate combined or otherwise - as actual songs as he is most definitely a man more with atmosphere in his mind than commercial intent and many of the tracks on this album indeed sound like they would find a place on the soundtrack to some sort of esoteric film, perhaps even an eastern bloc science fiction film, from the sixties. That’s not to say that there is no structure worthy of worship here, for there is that, yet, whilst not weird enough to be freeform, “Night Blooming Flowers “feels like an album that should be attached to pictures potentially detached from the mainstream. I’m not entirely sure exactly what kind of pictures but I am pretty certain that pictures from the past would be the most appropriate.
Despite the sometimes spirited use of discontinuities, “Night Blooming Flowers” isn’t an unapproachable album and, if your musical tastes stretch as far as Michael Nyman or Louis Barron, then, with an espresso in one hand and a fine Armagnac in the other, you may find yourself being absorbed into the alternate reality created by Drew Mulholland & Garden Gate. As for what’s it all about, does it really matter?
There is a vinyl edition available from Bandcamp.