Today, record label Sacred Bones announced an archival release from Canadian-born electronic pioneer and composer, Mort Garson, titled Journey to the Moon and Beyond, to be released July 21, 2023.
With the news, comes “Moon Journey,” the soundtrack to the live broadcast of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, as first heard on CBS News. Nearly in tandem with the release date, July 20, 2023 will mark Garson’s 99th birthday, and the 54th anniversary of the moon landing.
Garson is best known for his albums in the 1960s and 1970s that were among the first to feature Moog synthesizers. His best-known album is Mother Earth’s Plantasia, a 1976 Moog album designed to be played “for plants and the people who love them.”
The upcoming album also features an array of other Garson compositions: the soundtrack to the 1974 blaxploitation film Black Eye (starring Fred Williamson), some previously unreleased and newly unearthed music for advertising, and “Zoos of the World,” from a 1970 National Geographic special of the same name. Some of the tracks, such as “Western Dragon,” were found on tapes in the archive with no further information than their titles.
“Moon Journey,” Garson’s soundtrack to the live broadcast of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, was first heard on CBS News. (Sacred Bones’s press release puns, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for Moogkind.”) For decades, this audio was presumed lost, the only trace of it appearing to be from an old YouTube clip. Audio archivist Andy Zax remarkably discovered a copy of the master tape while going through the archive of 70s poet Rod McKuen archive.
Sacred Bones describes the piece:
“Across six minutes, Garson conjures broad fantasias, whirring mooncraft sounds, zero-gravity squelches, and twinkling études. It showcases Mort’s many moods: sweet, exploratory, whimsical, a little bit corny, weaving it all together in a glorious whole.”
Availability:
Preorders for the the Mort Garson album, “Journey To the Moon and Beyond,”LP and CD are now open at this link. The album will be released on July 21, 2023. You can buy a digital copy of the album or stream the track “Moon Journey,” on Bandcamp.
Silver Apples of the Moon by Morton Subotnick was much more groundbreaking than this kind of pop music synth stuff, but I guess funny Moog tunes were more comprehendible by the general public.
Ah right, because regular people should only like music that they can, “comprehend”, and when possible, prefer “groundbreaking” over “pop music synth stuff”.
Gee whiz, I guess you told me! LOL