{"id":974025,"date":"2019-12-12T14:17:57","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T21:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=925159"},"modified":"2019-12-12T14:17:57","modified_gmt":"2019-12-12T21:17:57","slug":"revisiting-the-weird-world-of-seventies-plant-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/revisiting-the-weird-world-of-seventies-plant-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting the Weird World of Seventies Plant Music"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 2019, it seems almost inconceivable that a book could heavily influence pop culture, but that\u2019s exactly what 1973\u2019s The Secret Life of Plants<\/em><\/a> did. Written by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, the book proposed that not only are plants sentient, but it\u2019s possible they might even enjoy<\/em> music. Of course, this theory was widely criticized by scientists, but it nonetheless became a bestseller, sparking a phenomenon and opening the floodgates for the plant music genre.<\/p>\n

From Ann Chase\u2019s A Chant For Your Plants<\/em><\/a> to the Baroque Bouquet\u2019s Plant Music<\/em><\/a>, these records have largely been forgotten (except for Stevie Wonder\u2019s soundtrack<\/a> to the book\u2019s adaptation). But with the reissue of Mother Earth\u2019s Plantasia<\/em> this summer, the genre has made an inkling of a comeback.<\/p>\n

Originally released in 1976, Mother Earth\u2019s Plantasia<\/em> is the work of Mort Garson, made entirely on a Moog synthesizer. The record was so obscure it could only be purchased at a plant store called Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or, if you happened to purchase a Simmons mattress at Sears, it was given for free).<\/p>\n

Garson had spent the previous decade working as an arranger and composer \u2014 including records for Doris Day and even the string arrangements on Glen Campbell\u2019s \u201cBy The Time I Get to Phoenix\u201d<\/a> \u2014 but his world irrevocably changed when he purchased Robert Moog\u2019s swanky invention. He\u2019d use it to compose wonderfully weird records like 1967\u2019s The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds<\/em> and 1968\u2019s The Wozard of Iz<\/em>, but Mother Earth\u2019s Plantasia<\/em> became his magnum opus: ten earthy electronic tracks that may not exactly make your plants grow, but are delightful and groovy just the same.<\/p>\n

The opening track to the album, \u201cPlantasia\u201d begins with a twinkle, a faint and friendly glimmering that guides the ears through symphonic journey. The song builds to a psychedelic crescendo, almost like the soundtrack to a germination video that\u2019s shown through a projector to a seventh grade science class.<\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

So many records get reissued each year that you have to weed through them to find the gems. Like Gene Clark\u2019s No Other<\/em><\/a>, Mother Earth\u2019s Plantasia<\/em> is a cult classic that was long overdue for millennials. To them, houseplants are a must-have, like owning a tote bag or vacationing in Iceland. If you\u2019re going to spend hundreds of dollars on cacti and snake plants, you might as well serenade them to a concerto.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you really care,\u201d the Rapps wrote in the record\u2019s cheeky liner notes, \u201cevery pitch is scientifically designed to affect the stomata, or breathing cells of your plants, opening them ever so slightly wider and allowing them to breathe ever so slightly freer and thus, grow ever so slightly better. Talking to them? Well, we\u2019ve always felt that talking to your plants is going to do more for you than it does for them.\u201d Amen to that.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2019, it seems almost inconceivable that a book could heavily influence pop culture, but that\u2019s exactly what 1973\u2019s The Secret Life of Plants did. Written by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, the book proposed that not only are plants sentient, but it\u2019s possible they might even enjoy music. Of course, this theory was widely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-974025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-26 16:28:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KFMU Solar Powered Radio","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}