Black Mass – Lucifer / The Unexplained – Ataraxia (Mort Garson)

If these aren’t two of the greatest electronic albums ever made....you can lock me up with Davina McCall for a week. Mort Garson played silly buggers by Moogifying the soundtrack to ‘Hair’ as well as taking a mad trip down his own yellow brick road in the form of ‘The Wozard Of Id’, but for my money these are his best albums. He made ‘Black Mass’ in ’71 as Lucifer, and ‘The Unexplained’ in ’75 as Ataraxia. Both are bursting with pure electronic wonders – you can forget all that ‘Hauntology’ crap, this man had been there and done that, although I’m still not sure what ‘Hauntology’ is, exactly. But ‘Seance’, from ‘Ataraxia’, is full of proto-Modern spookiness that’s much in favour now. And ‘Wind Dance’ is simply, indescribably, way ahead, and way-out, of course. Occasionally he strays into pop-like  sounds, but they’re only like pop, pop from another dimension in the best sense, as opposed to crap Moog versions of Pop hits.  ‘Deja Vu’, from ‘Ataraxia’, is so insanely catchy, and  funky, that it should have been released as a single and made a worldwide hit on Futuristic dance floors. This is not Wendy Carlos, nor is it difficult avant-garde. It’s Mort Garson, and I urge you to go seek  if you know what’s good for your ears.