TRACK: hear Mort Garson’s ‘Ode To An African Violet’: spacey, deconstructed Moog funk for your flowers

YOU’VE never really heard Mort Garson, you say; heard the name, never quite caught up with any of his stuff; anyway, it’s rock hard to get hold of, isn’t it?

Yeah, of course I’m into Stereolab, Broadcast, Plone; Belbury Poly, Add N To (X), you say. If it’s weird and Moogy and kinda space age retro-futurist, totally my bag, you say. But no, not Mort Garson.

Now, this is at the very least a bad oversight; but thankfully for your oscillator-wired soul, the rather lovely label Sacred Bones is riding to your rescue. They’re undertaking a massive reissue campaign of the hard-to-find albums of the Canadian early electronicist.

Sacred Bones has already reissued his 1976 album, Mother Earth’s Plantasia – yes, it really is very groovy Moog music for your plants; there’s another heavyweight audiophile pressing due of this, with even an eight-track cartridge this time around.

But come November 6th, another quartet of brilliantly bizarre electronica albums from Mort will be out in the racks: the twin eerie supernatural sound explorations of Lucifer’s Black Mass and Ataraxia’s The Unexplained; the really, really obscure soundtrack Didn’t You Hear, available upon release in 1970 in the foyer of just one US cinema; and to cap it all, a new compilation of unreleased tracks and alternate takes from the vaults, Music From Patch Cord Productions.

As a flutter of the lashes at your Moog-craving psyche, today Sacred Bones have teased these reissues with an alternate take of “Ode to an African Violet” – previously available in a different version on Mother Earth’s Plantasia, this take will feature on Music From Patch Cord Productions (and was found on the same reel as previously unheard track “This Is My Beloved”, which we covered here a short while back). 

Need to find out more? Of course you do. Head on over to Sacred Bones’ Mort Garson page, where you can find the quartet of November reissues available for pre-order in some very tastily hued limited vinyl pressings, trad black vinyl, T-shirts, and more. There’s also a Mort Garson Bandcamp page vending these goodies.