MORT GARSON is a name that’s intoned with due gravity by those who know.
Hailing from Canada with an interest of the sounds of early circuitry-based music and a penchant for conceptual albums – concerning witchcraft, the zodiac, even music to help plants grow: to the sort of people you find in the kitchen bathtub at parties, he’s an absolute legend.
But his albums have been in and out of print for decades; a limited reissue here, a limited reissue there.
Now Sacred Bones, which has already reissued Mother Earth’s Plantasia – yep, music your plants to listen to (and which is up for a further repress and even an eight-track iteration) has undertaken to really get stuck into his off-kilter and wondrous synth world.
Come November 6th, not only will you be able to visit your local record emporium and buy the two intriguing and eerie synthetic sweeps he released in the 70s concerned with evoking the occult in sound – Black Mass, which he released as Lucifer; and The Unexplained, by Ataraxia – and the soundtrack to experimental film Didn’t You Hear, originally available only in the lobby of the Seattle cinema which screened the film (now that’s what you call obscure) – there’s even to be a compilation of entirely unreleased material from deep in the reels.
It features alternate takes of Plantasia tracks, music for never-aired radio advertisements, themes for science fiction films, erotic oddities and much more.
And it’s from this esoteric collection, Music From Patch Cord Productions, that the track Sacred Bones has just dropped comes: take a listen below to “Dragonfly”, an off-kilter synth disco cut discovered in the Garson archive. It’s funky as hell, comes close to the territory of Meco (who released the electro-disco mix of the Star Wars theme), and it’s actually something of an outlier for an artist who himself was something of an outlier. Seems he could turn his hand to so many electronic things.
This deluxe reissue includes new liner notes by Andy Beta, of Pitchfork; there’s a one-per-customer-strictly violet and lime splash vinyl pressing. Pre-order here.
This quartet of Mort Garson nuggets is the a real absolute gift for all aficionados of electronica. For further investigative purposes and to order all or any of the reissues, head over to Sacred Bones, here.
