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.

In the span of ten years, Garson’s trusty Moog was the tool for every job. He deployed it to make the proto-typical New Age soundscapes corresponding to every sign of the Zodiac, warped the Wizard of Oz (as the Wozard of Iz), wigged out on Hair with the follicle-frizzing Electronic Hair Pieces. There was no hippie trend that Garson didn’t scour for the chance to land his own countercultural ‘hit.’ To cap that decade, Garson even soundtracked the US broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing, which outside of a YouTube clip, has otherwise been lost to time.

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.

Tracklisting 

1. Is He Trying to Tell Us Something? (Instrumental)
2. Rhapsody in Green (Alternate Take)
3. Baroque No. 2
4. This Is My Beloved 03:04
5. Music for Advertising #1
6. Music for Advertising #2
7. Music for Advertising #3
8. Killers of the Wild
9. Realizations of an Aeropolis
10. Music for Advertising #4
11. Music for Advertising #5
12. Z - Theme from "Music for Sensuous Lovers" Part I (Instrumental)
13. The Blobs - Son of Blob Theme
14. Cathedral of Pleasure
15. Ode to an African Violet (Alternate Take)
16. The Time Zone - Space Walker
17. Dragonfly
18. The Lords of Percussion - Geisha Girl
19. The Electric Blues Society - Our Day Will Come