The Garden Gate : Canyon Of Blood

The musical world of The Garden Gate has always evoked the feeling of listening to one of those old story records. “When you hear the beep, turn the page” kind of thing. Except instead of listening to a Disney story, it’s something like Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived In The Castle, or Joyce Carol Oates’ Angel Of Light. Gothic tales with a thru line of melancholy. Humanist horror of the highest order. The Garden Gate evokes big emotion and connection through analog synths and ghostly strings, with the payoff being you feel you’ve truly experienced something both beautiful and haunting by the end. That’s the best kind of ghost story, isn’t it?

When you drop the needle on the latest LP from The Garden Gate(aka, Timmi Meskers), you get transported. There’s an eerie, haunted feel with Canyon Of Blood; touches of Giallo, folk horror, and a kind of psychic drama permeate this “Baroque Western Dreamscape via Library of the Occult”. A doomed romanticism comes through via 60s-style string arrangements, vintage electronics, and an overall cinematic feel that pulls you into the world of Canyon Of Blood.

Opener “Devil’s Cave” opens with spoken word, much like John Houseman’s tale on the beach in Antonio Bay in the opening moments of The Fog. The music evokes both 60s and 70s Giallo, as well as contemporary artists like Repeated Viewing and Wojciech Golczewski. The modern and vintage collide in a beautiful kind of haunted grief. “Hold Your Horses” brings to mind the great Walter Rizzati with touches of Ennio Morricone for that neo-western vibe. There’s also the beautiful piano and strings piece “Charlotte’s Tableau” that elicits northeastern bluffs and stinging cold of a Nor’easter.

Throughout Canyon Of Blood you’re transported as if in some Gothic fairy tale. Going from lush strings reminiscent of the great Pino Donaggio to early Cliff Martinez ala Kafka and King of the Hill. “Angelus Mortuus” hangs on mournful, romantic tones while “Club Zodiac Leather Night” swims and sways in whimsically eerie Mort Garson vibes. “An Insatiable Hunger For Flesh” sounds like something you’d hear on some early 50s radio drama before the electro pulse kicks in. “The Scorpion Tattoo” closes the final chapter of Canyon Of Blood on a lilting and lovely note, giving the album an ending fitting its tale.

Canyon Of Blood is a stunning record from The Garden Gate. Keeping with her previous beautifully doomed musical tales, Timmie Meskers makes one of her best and endearing records yet.