Third album collaboration between Scottish singer-songwriter Samantha Whates and Southend scenester MG Boulter – Flower Days explores the enduring role of flowers as carriers of human meaning
Release Date: 25th April 2025
Label: Pyrofon
Formats: CD / Digital
WORTH THE WAIT
Scottish singer-songwriter Samantha Whates and Southend scene veteran MG Boulter first got together as long ago as 2013. That first collaboration resulted in the duo’s debut album together, The Boatswain’s Manual. It was a full six years before they next committed their disparate-yet-complementary ideas to record, for the five-track EP, How to Read (2020). It isn’t really a surprise, therefore, that we’ve had to wait a further five years for the pair’s latest offering, but Flower Days has been worth the wait.
SAMANTHA WHATES & MG BOULTER
In a way, it isn’t all that surprising that Samantha and MG only manage to link up on infrequent occasions – they’re both busy people. Hailing from Montrose on Scotland’s East Coast, Samantha Whates is a highly respected figure on both the Scottish and English folk scenes. Her observational songs often reflect the traditions of her Scottish roots whilst remaining distinctively identifiable as her own work. She sings with an expression and passion that has turned the head of no less a personage than Dolly Parton and she’s also noted for her fluid fingerpicked guitar style.
MG Boulter is something of a regular amongst the pages of At The Barrier. Back in 2021, we were thoroughly enchanted by his album, Clifftown, MG’s collection of observations of life in and around his home city of Southend. Then, just about a year ago, he went one better with Days of Shaking, surely one of the albums of 2024 – it even moved one of our readers to comment: “Why [MG] remains unknown whilst others less blessed [succeed] is a sad testament to the times we live in.”
THE PHYSICAL AND METAPHORICAL THEME OF FLOWERS
Flower Days, the pair’s latest collaboration, was conceived and recorded during the depths of the recent Scottish winter at Cambo Country House, near St Andrews on the Fife peninsular. The album is a short collection of alt-folk and experimental chamber-pop pieces, based around the physical and metaphorical theme of flowers. As the album’s press release explains: “These songs bloom in the liminal space between tradition and experimentation, each one approaching floriography – the language of flowers – from different perspectives and story songs… The eight songs examine how different blooms have carried human stories across centuries, from devotion to grief, celebration to remembrance.”
INTRODUCTIONS AND INTERLUDES
We’re introduced gently. Opening track, Snowdrop, is a short-yet-delightful piece of music, evocative of a blossoming flower at the onset of Spring, from Samantha’s and MG’s brass ensemble friends. The sound of a flowing mountain spring yields to a soft, gentle, theme before Samantha steps forward to deliver a passionate lead vocal for the album’s title track. Fingerpicked guitar and some amazing double bass from Douglas Whates (Samantha’s distinguished brother and the album’s producer) provide the soothing accompaniment.
The running order of Flower Days is broken-up by three short passages, each of which conveys its own thought-provoking message. Titled, respectively, Tulip I, Tulip II and (you’ve guessed it…) Tulip III, the tracks are spread across the album to provide pensive interludes between songs. Samantha, accompanied by discrete piano, observes that “It only happens when you are there to see” with Tulip I. Meanwhile, MG adds his vocal tones and some impressive fingerpicked guitar to Sam’s Incredible String Band-like incantation: “It only happens when you are falling at the roots of – There to see,” for Tulip II. And, perhaps the most blissful of the three interludes, Tulip III features the trumpet of Philip Cardwell with a tasteful, pastoral tune.
SATISFACTION
Spoken-word quotations from The Book of Symbols, included whispered message such as “Is there anything more sensual than a flower?” and “Flowers are the hallmark of spring” alternate with Samantha’s raucous chorus in Chrysanthemum. Then, MG steps forward to deliver his only lead vocal for Lily Rose. MG’s voice is instantly familiar and the song has a rich, satisfying sound. It’s the album’s most accessible song, an obvious choice for the lead single, anthemic and enjoyable.
Closing track Daffodils is, without doubt, both the album’s most experimental piece and its centrepiece. Samantha delivers absorbing lyrics like: “Did we peak too soon, like daffodils in the snow?” and “…Prematurely green, never to know, there’s nowhere to go” to a jazzy, understated backing before guitars, slide guitar and harmony vocals provide an anthemic coda to the song, and to the album. It leaves the listener strangely satisfied.
Listen to My Life in Seven Bookshops – a track from Samantha Whates’ and MG Boulter’s 2020 EP How to Read, below:
Samantha Whates online: Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / YouTube / Bandcamp
MG Boulter Online: Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / YouTube / Bandcamp
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Samantha Whates & MG Boulter: Bandcamp