A pioneer of electronic music and the Moog synthesizer, Mort Garson's eclectic discography is not the most widely known, but its influence is widely felt. He was among the first to push the technology of electronic music to its limits, creating rich albums of wide-ranging themes, from botany to the occult to a psychedelic re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz, nothing was too weird for Mort. Decades later, electronic distribution finally caught up, and I was able to find Mort's music on YouTube, though sadly the man is no longer with us to share in his rediscovery.
420 to 30: A Music Retrospective
Here's 7 of my favorites from Mort Garson.
Week 49: MORT GARSON
#337/420 - Mort Garson, “Tarot”
Ataraxia is freedom from stress, anxiety, and other emotional disturbance; tranquility. I wouldn’t quite call this album tranquil, but perhaps that is the unexplained. This is the lead track from what is an incredibly dark and atmospheric album from Mort Garson, which sounds a bit like an escape from sort of futuristic science (fiction) facility, opening into the grandiose by the end. It is both contemplative and intense, with an orchestra of electronic sounds.
It's excellent preparation for the journey that follows on this album and one of my favorites from Mort.
#338/420 - Mort Garson, “Solomon’s Ring”
While Mort had some cool, weird, somewhat dorky, hippy-trippy albums in the 60s like The Zodiac and The Wozard of Iz, the 70s was when he really hit his stride and started composing some really great material worth listening to for more than the novelty, in my opinion. It became an experience. Black Mass Lucifer is one of his best albums and this opening track is another nice atmospheric piece to take off another of Mort’s journeys through surreal synthesized sounds inspired by dark/occult themes.
#339/420 - Mort Garson, “Plantasia”
The first song I heard by Mort Garson that led to countless hours more, this is a gem, a real diamond in the rough, the whole album really, but I really love this intro track. Very sadly, this was the last album Mort Garson made, as it is also my favorite. I love the direction he took here, stepping out of the dark themes almost all of his previous material existed within, and moving into the light, literally, as this album is pitched as music for plants.
The bubbly sounds of the beginning followed by the high whistling brings to mind the sounds of old animated films set to music, when flowers are blooming. I hear petals opening, leaves and stems outstretching. Maybe it’s that the album covers reads, “warm earth music for plants… and the people who love them,” that is suggesting the imagery to my mind, but it is a quite a simple statement to inspire all that the music calls to view in my head. It's spacey, psychedelic, and somehow earthy all the while.
I really enjoy the concept, execution, and listening experience it provides.
#340/420 - Mort Garson, “Walk to the Other Side of the Island”
Billed as the first completely electronically scored film soundtrack, Mort Garson wrote the music for this modest film from 1970 about a student’s dreamworld where he is the captain of a ship and his friends are the crew. My favorite ditty to listen to from this album is this song, which is a relaxing little piece with a touch of drama at the end. I love the sounds implemented here, and I think this soundtrack brought upon the best era of Mort music, his works in the 70s, which became more musical and less experimental.
The puttering, squeaky honks and the magic, spacey-sounding, enchanting sweeps come together for a great back and forth that makes my heart smile, and which could fit right in on Plantasia to make plants’ hearts smile as well.
Another one to love from the master Mort.
#341/420 - Mort Garson, “The Unexplained”
The title track from this album is among its highlights as well as Mort’s best. This is a trip down a futuristic light rail, going through aboveground chutes and underground tunnels, speeding past flashing neon lights and showers of laser light shows. This arcade-roller coaster ride of a song really takes the synthesized sounds of Garson’s electronic orchestras into an even higher plane of wonder, girth, and texture.
While the 80s and 90s were known for these kinds of sounds, this was 1975 and Mort Garson was well ahead of his time.
#342/420 - Mort Garson, “Déjà Vu”
This fantastic piece is my favorite from Ataraxia, and was a big inspiration in creating the sound for the mirror maze scene in Batman & Jesus. I think this could fairly be called electronic prog, and progress it does, very nicely. The sounds implemented here are awesome, the use of the Moog synthesizer is exceptional. The upturns and downturns are candy for the ears throughout the song, and the space created is like a fantasy.
The music here is determined, mysterious, and charged, and the path it leads the listener down is a trip to remember. Another great song from a great album, this is definitely one of Mort’s very best, way ahead of its time.
#343/420 - Mort Garson, “Swingin' Spathiphyllums”
If you want to talk about great energy, this song has it. And fittingly it fell on one of the greatest such energy-giving days of my life so far. I am a swingin’ spathiphyllum today, and likely for the next good while.
My favorite from Mort Garson, this track offers an immediate pick-me-up for me whenever I hear it, and as one of the last songs on Mort’s last album, it is only bittersweet in its signaling of the end. The sounds at the start are like a field of petals opening in the morning, and the way it picks up, it is truly a field-full swinging in a rhythmic breeze, the warm overtones the sun, and the glimmering accents the pollen dust drifting to the ground, insects scooting around through the air.
It’s a magic piece from Mort that absolutely defines the album’s promise of “warm earth music for plants… and the people who love them.” I am driving through the country on a warm sunny day, holding hands with someone I love, no matter if I am alone in a dark bus to X location or whether it is actually true.
Listening to these albums, Plantasia especially, I can also hear the soundtracks of so many of my favorite video games to come, and certainly Mort Garson must have somehow been an influence to some of these great composers. “Concerto for Philodendron & Pothos” in particular is so similar to “Zelda’s Lullaby” in sections that it is hard to believe Koji Kondo wasn’t spinning this LP back in the day, despite how limited its release was.
Whatever the case, whether incidental or intentional in its forecast of electronic and synthesized music to come, the internet has allowed Mort Garson’s music to finally reach the true masses, and I am personally very happy and grateful to have his rich discography as part of the soundtrack to my life.
Next week, expect the unexpected as I finally touch on a band that is only formed within the last decade! Its the most recent group to reach timeless status for me, with three albums so far that I have very much enjoyed, particularly the first. They’re the highlight of ’10s indie rock, for my taste, Foster the People.
420 to 30: A Music Retrospective
Week 2: The Jackson 5/The Jacksons
Week 3: A Tribe Called Quest
Week 4: Weezer
Week 5: Bob Dylan
Week 6: Led Zeppelin
Week 7: 2Pac/Makaveli
Week 8: Billy Joel
Week 9: Electric Light Orchestra
Week 10: Elvis Presley
Week 11: Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band
Week 12: The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Week 13: Nirvana
Week 14: The Doors
Week 15: The Rolling Stones
Week 16: Gnarls Barkley
Week 17: Gábor Szabó
Week 18: Galaxie 500
Week 19: Simon & Garfunkel
Week 20: Gorillaz
Week 21: Ennio Morricone
Week 22: The Moody Blues
Week 23: Koji Kondo
Week 24: Rob Zombie/White Zombie
Week 25: Paul McCartney/Wings
Week 26: George Harrison
Week 27: Phil Spector
Week 28: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
Week 29: Public Enemy
Week 30: The Love Language
Week 31: Barry White
Week 32: Frank Sinatra
Week 33: David Bowie
Week 34: Queen
Week 35: The Offspring
Week 36: Louis Prima
Week 37: The Notorious B.I.G.
Week 38: Nancy Sinatra
Week 39: Stevie Wonder
Week 40: Roger Miller
Week 41: Röyksopp
Week 42: N.W.A
Week 43: Sly and the Family Stone
Week 44: Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass
Week 45: Supertramp
Week 46: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Week 47: The Kinks
Week 48: Eminem
View the full list of "420 Songs" here: https://tinyurl.com/y8fboudu (Google spreadsheet link)