Discovering electronic pioneer Mort Garson

Dive into the career of Mort Garson.

Electronic music pioneer Mort Garson created music across the spectrum. His illustrious career boasts pop chart-toppers like the easy-listening lounge hit “Our Day Will Come” and arrangements for Doris Day, Esther Phillips and more, before moving onto the more bizarre with his experimentation with Moog synthesisers.

This later period saw Garson create stunning soundtracks for National Geographic specials and the 1969 CBS News Apollo 11 moon landing broadcast, the score for West End musical Marilyn! and the 1974 Fred Williamson film Black Eye among many more. As well as these impressive works, Garson released solo Moog works with no limitations to topic, from the occult (Black Mass) to houseplant health (Mother Earth’s Plantasia) and a Wizard of Oz psych parody (The Wozard of Iz: An Electronic Odyssey).

In 2019, Sacred Bones began their Mort Garson reissue series with Mother Earth’s Plantasia and have gone onto release albums Black Mass and The Unexplained, soundtrack Didn’t You Hear, and compilations Music From Patch Cord Productions and Journey To The Moon And Beyond.

Following the latest Mort Garson compilation release from Sacred Bones Records, Journey To The Moon And Beyond, we caught up with label mate Hilary Woods to chat about her love for Garson, the influence he’s had on her music and her selections for the mix.

Irish artist Hilary Woods was first introduced to Mort Garson through the subtitle to his Mother Earth’s Plantasia–“Warm Earth music for plants and the people who love them”.

Composed using a Moog synthesiser, Mother Earth’s Plantasia was released in 1976 and was only available to those who purchased a houseplant from LA-based plant shop Mother Earth or a Simmons mattress from Sears. Since its initial limited release, the album has become a cult classic with it being an early example of electronic music.

With the record acting as a “sonic love letter” for both Woods and her plants, she soon realised she’d “become a part of a devout cult following of this much-loved record”. She adds: “On first spin, I could almost hear stems and roots lengthen into the soil, whilst simultaneously seedlings and saplings sprouting inconspicuously toward the sunlight.”

“I had never heard plant perception and cognisance represented this way before or even considered musically, and I loved the concept of such a record before I even hit play. Devoted to acknowledging not only the beauty and presence of nature, …Plantasia is a work that accompanies and encourages an increasing attention to plants, in its sonically extracting threads of connection and meaning to our relationship with them,” she says.

Garson’s work has also inspired Woods’ own playing, with her pinpointing his “explorative” use of Moog synthesisers and the “extraordinary playfulness and wonder” expressed. Also, the limited distribution of the record reminds her that “music exists not separate to, but part of an ecosystem that is often overlooked. The record serenades our plant friends and in doing so situates itself and the listener in and of, the natural world”.

It’s not just Mother Earth’s Plantasia that resonates with her. His whole career from pop hit arrangement to his post-Moog-discovery years is as influential for Woods as his African Violet-odes. “His lush cinematic string arrangements on a host of iconic sixties records, including those by Doris Day and Mel Tormé, act as a precursor to trends in orchestration today,” she explains.

“His soundtrack Black Eye brings all the joyous elements of his work together, in its uniquely offbeat psych-folk spacey atmosphere that is both trance-like and rhythmic while all-embracing of experiment and play.”

Listen to the mix in the player above, view the tracklist below, and read on for some more handpicked selections from Woods herself.

Tracklist:

Mort Garson – Theme From Music For Sensuous Lovers Part I (Instrumental)
Mort Garson – Our Day Will Come
Mort Garson – Love is a Garden
Mort Garson – Zoos of the World
Mort Garson – Baby’s Tears Blues
Mort Garson – Music to Soothe the Savage Snake Plant
Mort Garson – Plantasia
Mort Garson – Rhapsody in Green
Mort Garson – Moon Journey
Mort Garson – Western Dragon (Pt 1)
Mort Garson – The Big Game Hunters See The Cheetah
Mort Garson – Western Dragon (Pt 2)
Mort Garson – Black Eye (Main Theme)
Mort Garson – The D-Bee’s Cat Boogie
Mort Garson – Walk to the Other Side of the Island
Mort Garson – Dead Tree
Mort Garson – Sail! Sail!
Mort Garson – Virgil’s Theme
Mort Garson – Killers of the Wild
Mort Garson – Realizations of an Aeropolis
Mort Garson – Cathedral of Pleasure
Mort Garson – The Exchange

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Mort Garson

“Plantasia”

Sacred Bones Records

The whistling theremin gives joyous voice to a plant, whilst the arpeggiated electronica creates a fuzzy and warm feeling punctuated by the confidence of a brass section that booms in counteracting its dreamy inventiveness. In dialogue with our potted friends, I can almost sense their branches dance here.

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Mort Garson

“The Big Game Hunters See The Cheetah”

Sacred Bones Records

From Journey To The Moon and Beyond, this 60s early punk-inspired dancefloor track is fun with its high boots riot grrrl inflected “oohs and aaahs”. Everything about it is playful–the drum sound, snare, crash and Shangri–La-like vocals.

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Mort Garson

“Dead Tree”

Sacred Bones Records

From Mort Garson’s Didn’t You Hear, I love the eerie storytelling in this track, the offbeat tom drum, the opening build-up of rhythm, its crescendo and falling into step. It reminds me of an early seventies TV series, Charlie’s Angels meets a suspenseful whodunnit Dukes of Hazzard.

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Mort Garson

“Cathedral Of Pleasure”

Sacred Bones Records

From Music from Patch Cord Productions, the walking bass line coupled with the lullaby-esque vocal lines and almost spoken lyrics make this melody memorable. This track has a looping seventies swagger with its strings giving it a cosmic spatial quality, whilst the bassline pegs the entire track to the ground. It reminds me of a flirtatious “Nightclubbing” by Grace Jones if it had starred in an episode of The Love Boat.

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Mort Garson

“The Exchange”

Sacred Bones Records

This psychedelic characterful track unfolds with an unexpected drama that is both vivid and playful. Electronic and acoustic instrumentation create colourful bursts of different rhythms and sounds evoking an atmosphere reminiscent of a 70s Czech folk horror score. It’s the opener to Garson’s soundtrack to the 1974 American blaxploitation neo-noir action film Black Eye.