Label: Sacred Bones
Reissued 11/6/20
No doubt you know the name Mort Garson from his myriad writing, conducting, and arranging credits, topping a thousand in total: the Kim Sisters, Gi Sönne, Lola Novaković, Pfc. Craig Brown, Emilio Pericoli. Or failing that, his sides for Patti Page, Mel Tormé, Rosemary Clooney, Percy Faith, and Mr. Magoo himself. Which is to say, Mort Garson’s road to cool cultural caché and the sublimity of Plantasia meant a decades’ long journey through an underworld of sophisticated, international, string-laced dreck (ie, your great-grandparents’ record collection) to arrive at Music From Patch Cord Productions, this set of queasy-listening you now hold. Music From Patch Cord Productions shows that Garson’s knack was to exist in both worlds, super-commercial and waaay out. He cut delirious minute-long blasts for commercials (as to whether or not they were actually ever aired remains unknown) and spacecraft-hovering études. Were there really account managers out there in the early ‘70s that gave the greenlight to these commercial compositions which seemed to anticipate everyone from John Carpenter to Suicide? What were these campaigns actually for, Soylent Green? Regardless, Mort’s jingle work laid the groundwork for the future. As Robert Moog himself noted: “The jingles were important because they domesticated the sound.” Via Garson’s wizardry, the synthesizer transcended novelty to ubiquity and dominance.
Track Listing:
- Is He Trying to Tell Us Something? (Instrumental)
- Rhapsody in Green (Alternate Take)
- Baroque No.2
- This Is My Beloved
- Music for Advertising #1
- Music for Advertising #2
- Music for Advertising #3
- Killers of the Wild
- Realizations of An Aeropolis
- Music for Advertising #4
- Music for Advertising #5
- Theme from Music for Sensuous Lovers Part I (Instrumental)
- Son of Blob Theme
- Cathedral of Pleasure
- Ode to An Africa Violet (Alternate Take)
- Space Walker
- Dragonfly
- Geisha Girl
- Oue Day Will Come