| Mother Earth's Plantasia | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Mort Garson |
| Border: | yes |
| Released: | 1976 |
| Studio: | Patchcord Productions, Hollywood, California |
| Genre: | Space age pop |
| Label: | Homewood Records, Sacred Bones |
Mother Earth's Plantasia is an electronic album by Mort Garson released in 1976.
The music on it was composed specifically for plants to listen to.[1] Garson was inspired by his wife, who grew many plants in their home.[2] Garson used a Moog synthesizer to compose the album, the first album on the West Coast composed entirely on the Moog synthesizer.
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.[1] 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.[3]
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.[4]
In March 2019, Sacred Bones Records announced that they were officially reissuing Mother Earth's Plantasia.[3] The reissue is available on music streaming services and was released on vinyl, CD and cassette on June 21, 2019.[1] Angie Martoccio, writing for Rolling Stone in 2019, described Mother Earth's Plantasia as Garson's magnum opus.[5] Stephen M. Deusner, writing for Pitchfork, described it as perhaps Garson's "most beloved album, at least among crate-diggers and record collectors."
For the 2023 tax season, Intuit used the opening track "Plantasia" on a TurboTax advertisement.[6]