- Mort Garson's ambient classic brought to life in one of the largest greenhouses in the US.
- "I'm very persistent," explained Caleb Braaten of Sacred Bones from behind the merch booth at Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago. He was talking about reissuing Mort Garson's cult classic synth album, Mother Earth's Plantasia, which first hit the shelves in 1976. The process involved corresponding and meeting with Garson's daughter and coming to an agreement about reissuing some of Garson's other records. Prior to this year's pressing, vinyl copies of the album commanded hefty prices on Discogs. Millions have streamed it on YouTube. Its gentle tone, playful melodies and semi-absurd premise—the music was said to be healthy for house plants—have solidified the record's status as a deeply enjoyable, if occasionally silly, phenomenon.
Sacred Bones put in a lot of work to promote the record's return, including organising a handful of concerts around the US. For the Chicago show, the label teamed up with Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest greenhouse conservatories in the US, plus the online travel magazine Atlas Obscura and the music venue The Empty Bottle. Together, they invited a number of local musicians to perform Mother Earth's Plantasia in its entirety. 15 artists played the album's eight songs in the oxygen-rich atmosphere of the conservatory, surrounded by ferns, cacti and various types of tree.
The first set of the night came from the trio of Brett Naucke, Matchess's Whitney Johnson and Natalie Chami of TALsounds and Good Willsmith, who performed an explosive rendition of the album's opener, "Plantasia." They began with heavy drone before launching into Garson's catchy composition. Naucke held it down on sequencers, using his Eurorack setup while Johnson's Arp Odyssey and Chami's Juno-60 delivered the recognisable melodies.
Not everyone did note-for-note covers, though. "I was happy to see so many peers reinterpreting the pieces, as opposed to true-to-form renditions," said Ben Billington, a drummer and electronic musician who performs under the alias Quicksails. Reimagining "Rhapsody In Green," he took a noisy, psychedelic route, using a custom-made synth (by Matthew Regula) and a versatile ribbon controller (by Scott Stites) called The Appendage.
The most dramatic performance came from Tony Janas and Andy Ortmann of costume noise group Panicsville. They wore ghillie suits while manning Eurorack synthesizers, each of them deep in character, swaying gently like trees in the wind. As the set neared its end, things got even more absurd. Janas started a floating ball illusion before Ortmann slammed his synth on the table, a final BOOM! before the music faded out.
"Concerto For Philodendron & Pothos," played by Oui Ennui, also stood out. The composer, real name Jonn Wallen, hadn't played live in 15 years, though he'd amassed an impressive synth collection in the meantime. Wearing a jewel-encrusted mask, he lead the audience through techno, hip-hop and experimental music, causing many gyrating hips and bobbing heads.
Once the album's eight songs had been performed, Andrew Savage of the New York rock band Parquet Courts played an ambient set in the open air. People milled around and bought tie-dye T-shirts or relaxed on comfy couches. Inside the conservatory, Rob Sevier of the archival record label The Numero Group also played ambient, reverberating throughout the glass enclosure as attendees wandered around. Though much of the original marketing behind Mother Earth's Plantasia may have been disproven, this concert showed that music and plants is nevertheless a magical pairing.