Mother Earth's Plantasia

Mother Earth's Plantasia (subtitled "warm earth music for plants and the people who love them"), commonly referred to as simply Plantasia, is an electronic album by Mort Garson first released in 1976.

Mother Earth's Plantasia
Studio album by
Mort Garson
Released1976
StudioPatchcord Productions, Hollywood, California[1]
GenreElectronic, experimental, ambient
Length30:55
LabelHomewood Records, Sacred Bones
Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic78/100[2]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[3]
Pitchfork7.2/10[4]
The Quietus[5]

Background

The music on it was composed specifically for plants to listen to.[6] Garson was inspired by his wife, who grew many plants in their home.[7] Garson used a Moog synthesizer to compose the album, the first album on the West Coast composed entirely on the Moog synthesizer.[7]

The album had a very limited distribution upon release, only being available to people who bought a houseplant from a store called Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles or those who purchased a Simmons mattress from a Sears outlet, both of which came with the record.[6] As a result, the album failed to attain widespread popularity around the time of its release. However, it has since gained a cult following as an early work of electronic music.[8]

Legacy

The album has long been a gem for hip-hop producers, who sample snippets of these soundscapes. One of the best uses, and probably one of the reasons that this album (and Garson) came back to public interest, was Pharcyde's use of a snippet from the main track "Plantasia" for the song "Guestlist", from their 2000 album "Plain Rap".

The album also gained popularity on YouTube, with the full album (uploaded without permission) gaining millions of views and thousands of comments spread over multiple different bootleg uploads.[9]

In March 2019, Sacred Bones Records announced that they were officially reissuing Mother Earth's Plantasia.[8] The reissue is available on music streaming services and was released on vinyl, CD and cassette as well on June 21, 2019.[6] Angie Martoccio, writing for Rolling Stone in 2019, described Mother Earth's Plantasia as Garson's magnum opus.[10] Stephen M. Deusner, writing for Pitchfork, described it as perhaps Garson's "most beloved album, at least among crate-diggers and record collectors."[4]

For the 2023 tax season, Intuit used the opening track "Plantasia" on a TurboTax advertisement.[11]

Track listing
Side one
No.TitleLength
1."Plantasia"3:21
2."Symphony for a Spider Plant"2:41
3."Baby's Tears Blues"3:03
4."Ode to an African Violet"4:03
5."Concerto for Philodendron & Pothos"3:09
Side two
No.TitleLength
6."Rhapsody in Green"3:28
7."Swingin' Spathiphyllums"2:59
8."You Don't Have to Walk a Begonia"2:31
9."A Mellow Mood for Maidenhair"2:17
10."Music to Soothe the Savage Snake Plant"3:23

Personnel

Charts
Chart (2019) Peak
position
US Independent Albums (Billboard)[12]
6
US Top Dance/Electronic Albums (Billboard)[13]
8

See also

References
  1. Mother Earth's Plantasia (back cover of LP), Hollywood, CA: Homewood Records, 1976
  2. "Metacritic Review". Metacritic. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  3. Phares, Heather. "AllMusic Review". AllMusic. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  4. Deusner, Stephen (July 6, 2019). "Pitchfork Review". Pitchfork. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  5. Coney, Brian (June 26, 2019). "The Quietus Review". The Quietus. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  6. "Mort Garson: Mother Earth's Plantasia". Sacred Bones Records. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  7. "Celebrating Plantasia". Moog Music. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
  8. "Mother Earth's Plantasia Gets First Official Vinyl Reissue". Pitchfork. Condé Nast. 22 March 2019. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  9. Petridis, Alexis (2019-07-09). "Mother Earth's Plantasia: the cult album you should play to your plants". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-10-16.
  10. Martoccio, Angie (2019-12-12). "Revisiting the Weird World of Seventies Plant Music". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 2021-05-18. Retrieved 2021-05-18.
  11. "TurboTax Not Taxes 2023 Commercial Song". Commercial Song. January 2023. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
  12. "Independent Albums". Billboard. July 6, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  13. "EDM Music & Dance Albums Chart". Billboard. July 6, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.

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