Not 100% certain, this one, but I'm quietly confident that it has one foot in the '70s. An article in 'Record Retailer' of the 2nd of November 1969 stated that Flower Records, which had been active in India for three years, had released its first single in the UK a week earlier. Distribution was by the British Independent Record Distributors group - Lugton, H.R. Taylor, and others - and more releases were planned. According to the report the company did not intend to restrict itself to Indian music. That first single, 'Ramdhun' b/w 'Hare Krishna Mahamantra', had a catalogue number of FL-1 and orange labels of a plain design, without any pictures or a logo. Two other Flower singles, again by Tripti Das, had catalogue numbers in an FL-100 series and the altogether more ambitious labels shown above. They were undated, but if the report in 'RR' is correct they must have come out after 'Ramdhun'. It is not impossible that in the ten weeks or so between the release of that single and the end of 1969 the company could have changed its label design and its catalogue numbers and released two more singles, but it seems highly improbable. A process such as that would be expected to take several months at least, which would place the two later singles in the early 1970s. In addition, FL-101 had a three-pronged push-out centre of a type that seems to have been most commonly produced by manufacturers British Homophone during the periods October 1971 to February 1972 and July to September 1973, though there are examples from 1970 - I haven't yet traced any from 1969, though they may exist. With that in mind I would tentatively ascribe that single to 1970, though a date in the second half of 1971 wouldn't astound me. FL-100, presumably, pre-dated it. Again, that record was pressed by British Homophone. As can be seen from the company sleeve, The Flowers had a record sales division at 33 Haymarket, SW1.
Copyright 2016 Robert Lyons.