On their second album Gryphon moved from short dances and songs to extended composition. Midnight Mushrumps was recorded in January 1974 at Chipping Norton Recording Studios in Oxfordshire and released on Transatlantic that year, with Philip Nestor now on bass beside Richard Harvey, Brian Gulland, Graeme Taylor and Dave Oberlé.
The band had written music for Peter Hall's National Theatre production of Shakespeare's The Tempest, and that work shaped the record, whose title is a phrase from the play. Harvey's title piece fills the first side, almost nineteen minutes of crumhorns, recorders, bassoon, pipe organ, harpsichord and electric instruments moving through contrasting sections. The second side is shorter: the traditional The Ploughboy's Dream, Taylor's The Last Flash Of Gaberdine Tailor and Dubbel Dutch, Gulland's Gulland Rock and the group piece Ethelion.
Japanese CD reissue by Belle Antique, SHM-CD with 2025 remastering, in a mini LP replica with obi and Japanese insert.
