Sacred Bones Records Reissues Four Rare Mort Garson Modular Albums

Sacred Bones Records has announced four new releases by the late synthesist Mort Garson, following up on their successful reissue of his Plantasia album.

The albums include:

  • Mort Garson – Music from Patch Cord Productions
  • Mort Garson – Didn’t You Hear?
  • Lucifer – Black Mass
  • Ataraxia – The Unexplained

Music from Patch Cord Productions

A collection of rare and unreleased recordings. The compilation is like a Mort Garson playlist, and includes alternate takes of Plantasia tracks, music for never-aired radio advertisements, themes for science fiction films, erotic oddities, and much more from the prolific composer’s ’60s and ’70s synthesizer work.

This edition includes art by Robert Beatty and new liner notes by Andy Beta (Pitchfork).

Didn’t You Hear?

Six years before the release of his landmark Mother Earth’s Plantasia LP, Garson met experimental film director Skip Sherwood, who was interested in an electronic score for his new movie, Didn’t You Hear?

Originally available only in the lobby of the theater at screenings of the movie in Seattle, the soundtrack LP went out of print shortly after the film’s release. It has been a sought-after record for collectors of Mort Garson and early electronic music ever since. The new release was taken from the original master tapes and given a pristine remaster by engineer Josh Bonati.

Black Mass

Originally released in 1971, Black Mass is Garson’s synthesizer interpretations of occult and esoteric phenomena, ranging from the Satanic black mass, to exorcism, to witchcraft, and beyond.

This deluxe remastered edition presents the album in full with all original liner notes.

The Unexplained

Garson takes on supernatural phenomena with lush synth grooves on The Unexplained, his only release under the name Ataraxia.

Subtitled Electronic Musical Impressions of the Occult, the album explores tarot, astral projection, seances, and more with Garson’s signature Moog synthesizer serving as the listener’s tour guide.

This remastered edition marks the first official reissue of the album since its initial 1975 release, and it includes all the original liner notes.

Details are available at the Sacred Bones Records site.

5 thoughts on “Sacred Bones Records Reissues Four Rare Mort Garson Modular Albums

  1. > It has been a sought-after record for collectors of Mort Garson

    Any Garson fans want to bring us up to speed with this dude?

    1. Garson was somebody that was very skilled musically and did everything from arranging to conducting to composing pop songs.

      He also seems to have been sort of a musical opportunist – switching genres frequently to whatever was currently popular.

      In the late 60’s, he jumped on the Moog train and did a bunch of electronics albums. A lot of his work is in a sort of ‘Moogsploitation’ category – records with pop arrangements with a Moog lead line added and maybe some spacey effects

      For example, he did a Moog version of music from Hair. He also did an album of music for plants, because that was a thing for 5 minutes in the 70’s (Plantasia), albums for each of the symbols of the Zodiac, an album of easy listening pop with fake sex moans and so on.

      So there’s a lot of duds in his discography, but also a lot of WTF is this a real thing albums.

  2. i have a sad rip (the era of 128kbps) of Black Mass from my community colleges library in 2004, and have not been able to find the record in existence anywhere. Glad to see this!

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