MORT GARSON

To cite Wikipedia, "The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds is a 1967 collaborative concept album on the theme of the signs of the Zodiac. It was issued by Elektra Records in and featured early use of the Moog synthesizer by Paul Beaver, with music written by Mort Garson, words by Jacques Wilson, and narration by Cyrus Faryar. Instrumentation was provided by members of the Wrecking Crew studio collective".

Since Mort Garson's name didn't exist on the album's front cover, many have misinterpreted it to be an album by a group called The Zodiac. I added this album here in January when I reviewed Pisces from Garson's 12-part album cycle Signs of the Zodiac, which was entirely released in 1969. This 1967 album, Garson's debut as a composer, has a notable historic value as an early concept album and as one of the earliest albums to feature Moog synthesizer in a big role. Like in the mentioned album cycle that practically just expanded the same concept into twelve rather similar-sounding, Moog backed albums, instead of any sung vocals you hear narration on all twelve tracks (named after the Zodiac signs, naturally). Only this time there's just one man, and obviously the narration is a central part of this work too, like it or not.

But luckily compared to the relatively wordier album cycle, the music here is more eclectic, rockier and more upfront. In other words it would certainly work well on its own, purely instrumental without the narration that frankly gets annoying. In fact I bet most of us might prefer it that way. Whereas on the Signs albums the Moog is sovereignly reigning the instrumentation, this album is musically more diverse. The rhythm section, flute, keyboards and exotic percussion are equally essential in music. Due to the innovative use of Moog, the music is admittedly pretty cosmic and SciFi-like, but it is also an interesting product of the Psychedelic Rock era. With proper singers and vocal melodies it would probably be a big classic of the genre. Sadly the narration diminishes the musical appeal of this album.

The 2017 CD edition released in association with Cherry Red Records features a retrospective article. A citation: "The Moody Blues claimed that Cosmic Sounds inspired them to create their iconic Days of Future Passed, while countercultural pirate radio DJ John Peel stated that the album was instrumental in ushering in the Age of Aquarius; using it extensively on his influential Perfumed Garden programme." If I'm not mistaken, the excellent session musicians of the Wrecking Crew collective -- who played on several classic albums by e.g. Simon & Garfunkel and Beach Boys -- weren't even named on the original LP release. Bassist Carol Kaye, drummer Hal Blaine and others are also dealt with in the article. Garson died of renal failure in San Francisco in 2008.

(Originally posted in April 20, 2023, to a duplicate album page: I had no idea this album already existed in the Various Artists section, from where it was now edited to the Mort Garson page.)

This is my first rendez-vous with the music of MORT GARSON (1924-2008), a classically trained musician and electronic researcher who was among the first persons to make music with the Moog synthesizer. Several of his albums have been reviewed here, even one album from the 12-part series "Signs of the Zodiac" that was entirely released in 1969. Just for the heck of it, I too choose my own sign, without being interested in astrology per se.

Like seemingly each album in the Zodiac series, Pisces features three actors (Nancy Priddy, John Erwin and Michael Bell) reading in brief turns some astrological text about the sign in question, backed by Garson's cosmic Moog music. The album is about 28 minutes long, containing six tracks of varied length. It's rather pointless trying to follow or analyse the album track by track instead of just taking it as one continuity, as it certainly feels like. In other words, the textual level seems to be the primary thing, not the background music, so it wouldn't make much sense to talk of musical compositions or "songs" that one could tell from one another. But occasionally, for example in 'Pisces - Numbers, Gems and Colors', the synthesizer is a bit more up front, making me think of early VANGELIS -- who also used narration on tracks such as 'Albedo 0.39' and on some tracks of Aphrodite Child's classic album 666.

For non-native English speakers, these albums could be used as a listening practice. Of course it would help if the listener was sincerely interested in astrology. I'm an avid reader of fiction mainly, but not at all into audio books that have nowadays become more and more popular. If I was to choose whether to listen to an audio novel, ie. some brief book I'd like to read, or to this album, I would certainly choose this (well, I just did), merely for sonic reasons. Because this actually sounds quite fascinating, and I don't even need to fully concentrate on the text. The actors are very good in their task, they are not merely reading the text, and I simply like their voices, especially the female one. Those slightly echoed voices combined with Mort Garson's elegant and spacey use of Moog gives the whole a charming feel of an old (late 50's, 60's or 70's) science fiction movie.

Warmly recommended for a) Moog enthusiasts, b) people keen on astrology, and c) people enjoying hearplays and audio books. If you fill out each of these, just make the Youtube search and enjoy.

Now here's a bizarre little artifact of recorded music that seems to have an equally weird reputation that matches it's unorthodox content. MORT GARSON was one of the unsung heroes of early electronic music. After graduating from the Juilliard School of music in the 60s, he quickly discovered the Moog synthesizer and after years of crafting pop hits for the likes of Doris Day and Mel Tormé amongst others, he found his own niche similar to Walter Carlos in the world of electronic music and in his case the newly perfected Moog synthesizer of the era. While spending the 60s crafting hippie inspired electronic albums that covered every sign of the zodiac as well as cover tunes from the musical "Hair," GARSON also was responsible for countless commercial jingles as well as the soundtrack for the 1969 Apollo Moon Landing.

The 70s found his Moog synthesizer career branching out into completely different directions with 1971 finding his Lucifer alter ego cranking out the creepy "Black Mass," however one of his strangest and most unique creations has to be the 1976 album MOTHER'S EARTH PLANTASIA album which was designed to be played for plants! Yes, this album all about plants was created specifically to help plants grow and become more harmonious with their environment. The album was allegedly sold at mattress stores as well as being distributed as a freebie with the purchase of plant food, however i'm not convinced that these claims are accurate and it would hardly be a viable method for exclusive distribution, however a gimmick that sounds utterly brilliant if it was so the case.

Unlike albums like "Black Mass" that were designed to be creepy and utterly psychedelic, MOTHER EARTH'S PLANTASIA exudes a pacifying warmth that displays GARSON once again as a one-man Moog orchestra with ten tracks that celebrate the magnanimous nature of the plant kingdom. With such titles as "Symphony For A Spider Plant," "Ode To An African Violet" and "Music To Soothe The Savage Snake Plant," one simply becomes mesmerized by the subtle quirky synthesizer sounds that slink and slide into light hearted compositions that turned out to be quite influential for video game soundtrack music. "Concerto For A Philodendron" was a major blueprint for "Zelda's Lullaby" whereas the tones and timbres that coalesce into bloops and bleeps were fertile pickings for the 8-bit Nintendo video games that emerged the following decade. I can't place it but "You Don't Have To Walk A Begonia" has a distinct bass line that permeates the early soundtrack world of video games.

MOTHER EARTH'S PLANTASIA is another short album which clocks in at under 30 minutes, a formula that GARSON seemed to be most comfortable with. The tracks are short and straight to the point and as expected with such subject matter exude a rather childish innocence that offered the perfect template for secondary attention span music such as video game soundtracks. Anyone familiar with GARSON's style will find that MOTHER EARTH'S PLANTASIA very much continues the interesting layering of synthesized sounds that conspire to create vivacious counterpoints, electro-beats and various timbres however this album is all about gentleness and flows along in a nonchalant pastoral manner that fits in with the idea of nurturing fragile beings into complete happiness. Dated yes, but a pleasant sort of album that could only exist in a particular era.

While GARSON started out sounding much like what bands like Tangerine Dream and Goblin would eventually become famous for, he never stood still for too long and with MOTHER EARTH'S PLANTASIA he created a little slice of musical reality that had never been attempted before. As far as i'm aware no one had constructed music for and about plants with the idea of playing the music to them so that they could find perfect plant happiness! How's that for true hippie idealism! While not as far out as some of his strangest albums in terms of musical freakery, this one is probably one of the most unique of his entire career and despite never really taking off in its own right didn't go unnoticed as Stevie Wonder followed up his magnum opus "Songs In The Key Of Life" with a suspiciously similar concept album called "Stevie Wonder's Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants" which too was a progressive electronic new age journey a mere three years after the release of GARSON's tribute to plants.

MORT GARSON has to have had one of the most bizarre careers of any artist in recorded music. Having been a staple of the music industry in the 60s, Garson co-wrote hits for Brenda Lee, Cliff Richard and worked with Doris Day and Mel Torm'. In the 60s he launched a whole new career as one of the first arrangers and composers to work with the then totally new Moog synthesizer and he immediately pumped out a huge collection of exotica including a complete 12 part record series to cover ever sign of the zodiac. Some of these albums have still never seen a re-issue and command a hefty price for those who are extreme collectors. The year 1969 was a particular busy one where he not only produced all the zodiac albums but a kitschy Moog album called 'Electronic Hair Pieces' which covered songs from the musical 'Hair.' He also did jingles for commercials and even got his music in the background for the moon landing.

After the ventures into all the hippie influenced Moog albums, in 1971 Garson took on new persona under the moniker LUCIFER and released this sole relic titled BLACK MASS, however with the BLACK MASS appearing directly over the LUCIFER it was hardly apparent at the time which was the title and which was the artist. Out of print for over four decades, the album has at long last seen a proper remastering and CD appearance in the year of 2018 on the Rubellan Remasters label. The album was supposedly designed to simulate the spookiness of the occult in a completely Moog electronic setting however in reality what resulted was more a creepy space pop that surely must've been a major influence for the Italian band Goblin who would take a similar approach and perfect it for their lengthy career as horror soundtrack artists.

BLACK MASS is certainly a product of its time and for some probably hasn't exactly held up well over the time that has passed. Despite a rather Black Sabbath visual appeal, this album is more an exploratory adventure into defining the limitations of the Moog synthesizer regardless of where the music went. While the title connotes a rather sinister 'Rosemary's Baby' or even an 'Exorcist' sort of psychological horror, the truth is that the music is less Satanic and more psychedelic. This is a soundscape of twinkling keyboard stabs, omniscient atmospheric backdrops, keyboards that evoke vocal timbres and a series of pulsating percussive drives that also emanate from the inner world of the Moog just as much as the creepy synthesized tones.

The creepy introductory 'Solomon's Ring' oscillates into existence and quickly becomes a bizarre series of Moog dominated counterpoints with strange melodies swirling about and dynamic percussive beats simulating tribal beats. The album in many ways points to the direction that bands like Tangerine Dream would also follow. The tracks vary substantially with with 'The Ride Of Aida (Voodoo)' taking on a more exotic air that reminds more Yma Sumac than Satan. Tracks like 'Incubus' are the more sinister of the lot with slinking Moog riffs pulsating up and down exotic scales and dark contemplative journeys into the unknown as Moog riffs have conversations with one another.

The macabre title track probably comes closest to emulating the dark arts of any track with its synthetic bells and creepy chirping that coalesces into a demented church organ sound that picks up steam and becomes a jittery piece that juggles percussive beats and swanky synthesized sounds. 'The Evil Eye' sounds more like something off the 'Twilight Zone' with its almost theremin qualities but it also has the closest sounds to an electric guitar as popcorn percussion gurgles about. 'Exorcism' doesn't even remotely evoke a demonic cleansing but rather sounds like a whale song joining into an altered theme of the 60s 'Batman' series. The remaining tracks tread similar ground which showcase the extreme diversity of the Moog but not necessarily evoking the meaning of their respective titles.

If you're looking for Satan, look elsewhere. Obviously a cleverly crafted marketing gimmick to attract those who were hungry for anything occult. If you're looking for stellar period piece of Moog synthesizer music, then you've come to the right place here. Yes, this is woefully dated but in a good way really. Much as Walter (Wendy) Carlos found a unique niche with the 'Switched On Bach' series, so too did Garson find a nice little comfort zone in the world of period electronica. While there is no mistaking as to when this album was released, it is a charming example of Moog synthesizer playing in all its myriad forms. Yes, it's kitschy, it's campy and it certainly doesn't even remotely come off as spooky by today's standards but the playing is really interesting as Garson was a master of layering melodies and beats upon each other in almost a primeval DJ mindset. This album doesn't even hit the 30 minute mark so it's a fairly quick listen and it's one that i find to evoke the true nature of psychedelia in electronic form. For me, this is excellent.

The 60s, of course, was a time of extreme experimentation. A time in music, when after decades of fairly streamlined music pumping out of studios worldwide, was suddenly let off its leash and became quite en vogue to create imaginative and even compellingly complex concept albums. Inventive developments such as progressive rock were led by the likes of The Mothers Of Invention, Procol Harum, The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd and The Beatle's famous "Sgt.Pepper's Lonely Heart Club" album which catapulted experimental rock into the mainstream, however even within these rich and fertile times, a few albums emerged that remained enigmatic and utterly unique even within the creative outbursts that began around 1967 and has been churning on ever since.

Of these musical anomalies that emerged was the collaborative effort called THE ZODIAC : COSMIC SOUNDS which was a collectively constructed concept album about the, you guessed it, 12 astrological signs that represent the ecliptic paths of the planets, sun and moon. It was a clear sign that record companies were becoming more adventurous in their marketing strategies as this musical eccentricity was released on the Elektra label which formerly was known primarily as a catalog for folk recordings and folk rock hybrids such as Love, Judy Colins, Tom Rush and Tim Buckley amongst many others. However, Elektra owner Jac Holzman struck it big by taking a chance on a fledgling new band called The Doors which showed him that risk could indeed be a very profitable endeavor.

THE ZODIAC : COSMIC SOUNDS was unlike anything else of the time period. This was not an album initiated by any particular artist but rather commissioned by Elektra owner Jac Holzman himself who clearly had his fingers on the pulse of the burgeoning flower power hippie movement that gained significant popularity in the Summer of Love and whether you call it psychsploitation or just brilliant marketing, it's pretty much agreed upon that this one fell outside the parameters of pretty much everything else that came out of the era. At first glance, the album art connoted more of a hippie jam sort of album with its gaudy paisley cover art and the back sleeve that advertised in capital purple letters that this album "MUST BE PLAYED IN THE DARK." Add to that the colorful font and overall cosmic vibe, THE ZODIAC : COSMIC SOUNDS really couldn't have come out in any other time than when it did.

Predictably the album is divided into 12 tracks that cover each astrological sign at the beginning stages of the psychedelic rock years where such occult subject matter was becoming quite mainstream in the tune out / drop out counterculture. Musically this was quite unlike anything of the era as well. A queer mix of psychedelic rock and Moog rich keyboard electronica were tenderly teased out into symphonic semi-classical constructs that only The Moody Blues would also engage in on their landmark "Days Of Future Passed" which emerged a mere month later (some claim this album influenced some of the material on that one.) This was truly a collaborative effort with disparate talents finding themselves working together for the first time.

The album was produced by Alex Hassilev who worked with Mort Garson and Jacque Wilson who constructed the 12 tracks. Garson would create all the music while Wilson would create the poetic lyrics that were not sung but rather narrated by Modern Folk Quartet vocalist Cyrus Faryar. While Garson would be the sole writer of the musical aspects, the instruments were performed by some of the 60s top session musicians who were quite prolific on the Los Angeles scene. This included bassist Carol Kaye, drummer Hal Blaine, bass flautist Bud Shank, keyboardist Mike Melvoin, electronic wizard and Moog player Paul Beaver alongside Emil Richards handling the exotic percussion and Cyrus Faryar's often flowery poetic prose. The album floats by on gentle mode with slow tempos and instrumentation that weaves their magic into a greater sum of the parts.

While THE ZODIAC : COSMIC SOUNDS may be completely unlike anything of its era, in a way it's the absolutely perfect representation of where the Western culture especially in the US was at in 1967. Don't bother using Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix or The Mamas and the Papas as your reference to the counterculture hippie movement that emerged at the time. This uncanny collaboration captures the zeitgeist of the peace and love era more than any other album i've heard as it marries the musical ingenuity of what came before and contorts the traditional into a contemporary relevancy that captures society's interest in all things cosmic in a rather naive yet charming manner. While some albums that emerged at the time resonate as timeless classics that don't carry the baggage of their time period, THE ZODIAC : COSMIC SOUNDS is the exact opposite and could not be mistaken for having been released in any other era except the late 60s which it represents perfectly.

While some may find this cheesy and tacky, i find that the naive charm of the goofy lyrics along with the innovative symphonically driven psychedelic rock and electronica takes me like a time portal to the very year it was released. So period dependent is this one that i can easily imagination this as a secondary soundtrack to all those wild days in an Austin Powers movie. The music is as Austin would say, "Groovy, baby!" Yeah, the whole thing sounds a little farfetched and full of itself but that's kinda what the era was all about now, wasn't it? While the album didn't exactly match the success of Elektra's superstars The Doors in terms of sales, it did generate enough interest that would allow Garson and Wilson to expand the idea so that a series of 12 albums would be dedicated to each astrological sign. While that might be overkill for all those except the most hardcore lovers of everything 60s, this one compilation that introduces the idea is refreshingly unique and charmingly delivered.

Mort Garson does a 180 from the eerie Ataraxia, since this time he does a Plant Moog album, an album for plants, music that's supposed to be soothing for plants, so don't expect Ataraxia or Lucifer. In fact the music, for the most part borders on proto-New Age, and for my tastes, it's not always to my liking. The album does best when steering away from the early New Age template, to be honest it still sounds like Mort Garson we all know and love. Unlike his major label albums, Mother Earth's Plantasia was only available at furniture outlets (in Southern California, apparently) when you purchase a Simmons Mattress. I can't imagine too many Simmons buyers playing it, I'm sure many of them had fairly mainstream music tastes who likely had a few Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon, Eagles and James Taylor records in their collection at the time, with electronic music a bit out of their league. Regardless, not my favorite from him, but still worth having if you enjoyed his other electronic stuff. This appears to be Mort Garson's last exploration into electronic music, by 1976 his style was becoming outdated (Jean Michel Jarre was just appearing with the release of Oxygene that December that changed the world of electronic music, one of more mainstream acceptance). I don't know if this album will calm plants, but I'm sure it may calm many listeners.

This is probably my least favorite Mort Garson album. Given I was never a fan of the music to Hair, it's no surprise that even Moog renditions of said play doesn't appeal to me. It's pretty much straight forward. Actually not all of Hair bothers me, the ones that pop artists took on I do like (other than "Good Morning Starshine" that Oliver had a hit with and the Strawberry Alarm Clock recorded versions of). "Easy to be Hard" was covered by Three Dog Night, and isn't all that bad. Quincy Jones done a rather great jazz version of "Walking in Space", and I do like Mort's version of it. Then there's of course "Age of Aquarius", the Fifth Dimension did a famous hit version, and Mort's version is great. But the more cheesy stuff, like "Good Morning Starshine" I could do without. Personally I felt Mort Garson shines the best when doing original material, like the Signs of the Zodiac series or The Wozard of Iz. This was the first Mort Garson album I ever bought, a cheap copy found in Eugene, Oregon. Luckily I knew not to give up on him, once I started finding his other (original material) albums I simply loved it. To me, Electronic Hair Pieces sounds like one of those dime-a-dozen pop Moog albums doing Hair. Even though not a favorite, I still keep it, because the less cheesy stuff ain't too bad, but not the first I go to if I want to hear Mort Garson.

Cosmic at the time

One of the first releases to feature the Moog, and also one of the first concept albums, "Cosmic Sounds" is a collaborative project realized by multiple professional studio musicians and arrangers. Consisting in twelve short pieces representing the signs of the Zodiac, it features all the various psychedelic elements of the late 60's, and an important usage of keyboards, especially the well-known synthesizer, played by Paul Beaver. Each track is built around small musical patterns and narration interludes pronounced by Cyrus Faryar. The words were written by Jacques Wilson, and, most important, the music was composed by Mort Garson, who will later become one of the Moog's audacious explorers.

True story: the back cover includes the mention "Must Be Played In The Dark"...

The opener "Aries - The Fire-Fighter" is a psychedelic rock typical of the 60's. One of the best passages of the record, very catchy! Then comes "Taurus - The Voluptuary", a soft pastoral ballad, followed by the strange "Gemini - The Cool Eye", displaying various spacey ambiances but a bit uneven. "Cancer - The Moon Child" opens with a mysterious threatening ambiance, to then release furious guitars (at the time). Although "Leo - The Lord Of Lights" is a nice psyché-rock, my personal favorite track is undoubtedly the stellar "Virgo - The Perpetual Perfectionist" is. A perfect (short) trip into the stars!

The trippy meditative "Libra - The Flower Child" uses Indian instruments, whereas the martial "Scorpio - The Passionate Hero" is more oppressive. On the contrary, the weird circus "Sagittarius - The Versatile Daredevil" sounds a little out of place. No the best sign here... Much more mysterious is the sinister ritual "Capricorn - The Uncapricious Climber". The record finishes with the aerial crystalline "Aquarius - The Lover Of Life" and the peaceful melancholic "Pisces - The Peace Piper".

Despite its short tracks and length, the music manages to offer multiple varied atmospheres. For sure, the disc sounds a bit dated now and contains a few weak moments, but the result is very nice, ahead of its time and spacey for 1967. Accessible and not too experimental, "Cosmic Sounds" is a colorful and trippy journey around the Zodiac.

This album will influence other bands, such as MOODY BLUES for their pioneering "Days of Future Passed", usually considered as one of the first progressive record ever. An innovative and historic proto-prog album, and an essential listen for psychedelic and space rock lovers. Cosmic pop from the sixties!

It's unbelievable the amount of electronic albums Mort Garson had done since 1967 as of 1971 when Black Mass came out on the Uni label. He helped compose the Zodiac Cosmic Sounds album in 1967 for Elektra, did The Wozard of Iz, Electronic Hair Pieces (doing Moog renditions of music from Hair), the Signs of the Zodiac series, an obscure film soundtrack called Didn't You Hear, and a sex Moog album called Music for Sensuous Lovers. Those last two albums seem to be most obscure as Didn't You Hear was only available at Seattle movie theater lobbies when the film came out, and Music for Sensuous Lovers was obviously released privately (actually Sensuous Records, but I'm sure it was a private release) due to the content. For Black Mass, he records as Lucifer and creates an occult Moog album. After all, he did a sex Moog album, and a bunch of astrology Moog albums, a Broadway musical Moog, and a Moog album inspired by The Wizard of Oz updated to 1968 counterculture themes. Black Mass is full of creepy sounding synth and percussion sounds. Where The Signs of the Zodiac series tend to be pleasant, this stuff sounded pretty creepy. Much of it is on the experimental side, although classical style shows up on "Voices of the Dead (The Medium)". I also notice a part of one of the songs used on Signs of the Zodiac was used on the beginning of "Black Mass". I have often seen negative reviews of this album, but actually it's one of my favorites. For one thing, there's no narration or vocals, often I felt the narration and vocals on many of his other albums a bit hard to take seriously (especially the Signs of the Zodiac series), this one is all instrumental and so works in listener's benefit. If you do like this, don't forget to check out his The Unexplained (as Ataraxia) from 1975 on RCA (despite the four year gap, it's surprisingly similar). I love this kind of Moog music, sure beats a lot of those cheese renditions of pop and classical (for my tastes, some people like that cheesy stuff for kitsch value, for me most of that stuff doesn't hold up). Black Mass comes recommended by me.

Soundtrack to a real obscure film that only aired in Seattle theaters, I know little of the film, but the soundtrack album, which you could only get in Seattle theaters at the time, meant this LP is a guaranteed rarity (I used to live in Seattle for a short time in the 1990s, don't recall seeing this one, but then again, back then I never heard of Mort Garson, so who knows). This, and Music For Sensuous Lovers, which came out the next year (1971) seems to be Mort Garson's most obscure electronic albums. Didn't You Hear? only features vocals on two cuts, the bookended title tracks, the rest are short instrumental pieces. There is no denying this is Mort Garson and his modular Moog, in fact musically, it sounds not too different from Signs of the Zodiac series from the previous year, but no narrations to get in the way. More great electronic music from the early days of electronic. I like how (Electronic Hair Pieces aside) that he avoided doing Moog renditions of other people's songs and doing original material, and this album proves that. It's too bad A&M did not release that, then it would have been widely available, instead of on Custom Fidelity in Seattle theater lobbies (although the label was based out of California, so I'm guess it wasn't released elsewhere as the film was never aired outside Seattle). If you can find a copy, this album is required in your collection if you enjoy Mort Garson's electronic music.