I’ve always been very partial to the whole genre of Moog music. Late 60s and early 70s Moog records sound like white molded plastic chairs look. Fifty years on and those albums still sound futuristic. And totally artificial. To my mind, the sound of analog synthesizers make the perfect soundtrack for one’s aesthetic life, or at least mine. No really, if I go into a record store that has a selection of vintage Moog and exotica albums, I’m drawn to that first. It’s not like there’s many Moog albums I don’t already have, but hope springs eternal that I will find a “Switched On” something or other that I didn’t know existed.

My Moog bonafides are deep. Given an opportunity to do a compilation via Sony 20 years ago, I pitched a CD titled Best of Moog and they went for it. (Sadly six of what I considered absolute must-have key tracks were denied. Wendy Carlos actually hung up on me when I requested her cover of “What’s New Pussycat?” and I also had to make do with nothing from Mike Melvoin’s The Plastic Cow Goes Moog and no Mort Garson either—I wanted his cover of “Hair”—which was a drag.)
 

 
Which brings me to the new Mort Garson compilation, Music From Patch Cord Productions, released by the Sacred Bones record label. It’s fantastic, highly enjoyable. If you are already a Mort Garson aficionado, this will thrill you, and if you are new to Garson’s uniquely idiosyncratic work, this collection of sci-fi movie themes, radio ads, robotic disco, a wonderfully kooky stab at aural erotica along with alt versions of numbers from Garson’s 1976 classic Mother Earth’s Plantasia, is a decent place to start. It has a nice flow and is sequenced well, as if by a skilled DJ. It finishes up with a stellar Moog rendition of the Frankie Valli hit, “Our Day Will Come,” which surprise, surprise, was actually composed by Garson himself. It comes in a handsome retro package perfectly suited to the music within.

Apparently the archive of Garson unheard music is vast. Here’s hoping for more volumes like Music From Patch Cord Productions. Sacred Bones have also re-released four of Garson’s highly sought-after albums, the movie soundtrack Didn’t You Hear?(1970), Lucifer’s Black Mass (1971), Ataraxia’s The Unexplained (1975) and a 2LP 45rpm audiophile edition of Garson’s legendary 1976 album Mother Earth’s Plantasia.
 

 
When people talk about pioneers of electronic music, several key names are invoked. Musique concrète founder Pierre Schaeffer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage and Moog-goddess Wendy Carlos, just to mention a few. But one name that does not get invoked nearly enough is Mort Garson. This Canadian-born composer was not only a mere innovator but went on to make some of the most deliriously strange and wondrous electronic compositions (and cover versions) of the 20th century. Just the fact that the phrase, “occult-pop” has been used as a descriptor of his work should give you just a tiny hint of this man’s wholly unique genius.
 

 
Originally finding work as a session musician and lyricist, working with artists like Julie London, Rod McKuen, Doris Day and The Lettermen, it was when he started to work with the still new instrument known as the Moog Synthesizer, that things become very, very interesting. Albums like Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds and The Wozard of Iz, a psychedelic retelling of The Wizard of Oz, managed to create something that was on one hand very much of its time and yet, transcended the calculatedness of an industry cashing in on “The Love Generation” and become something on its own. The Wozard of Iz in particular, with such strong tracks like “Big Sur” and “Killing of the Witch,” is symptomatic of the high quality of Garson’s work. Some parts are kitschy-in-a-groovy-way, while others are as lush as they are alien.
 

“Big Sur”
 
In 1971, Garson made Black Mass under the appropriate moniker, “Lucifer.” While it’s not as ooky-spooky as it may sound, Black Mass is the kind of album you can listen to in a pitch black room and be transported to some charismatically unsettling landscape with nary a drug in your system. You don’t need drugs for this kind of beautiful high-weirdness. Mort Garson is the drug.

Mort would dip into the occult realm yet again with 1975’s The Unexplained: Electronic Musical Impressions of the Occult under the nom de plume Ataraxia, which is the Greek definition of “lucid state of robust tranquility.” Change “robust” to “robot” and that definition is apt for The Unexplained.
 

 
More Mort after the jump…