Great, hot off the press new record releases are so frequent these days that it pays to keep an eye and ear out for them. I'm actually starting my countdown of favourite albums of 2023 in a few days time would you believe. 150 of them taking us to Christmas Day and I doubt if I'll shoehorn in everything I've loved this year. There are still five months of 2023 still to come. I really should get that job in a record shop.
Still it pays to keep an eye on re-releases too. Bandcamp is generally still best for this. At least as far as the truly obscure and slightly unhinged is concerned. My latest discovery in this respect is Mort Garson who was responsible for their album of the day a couple of days ago. A Canadian session musician turned avant gard maverick. It's worth delving into his moogy innovation to get one up on your trendier than thou record collecting contemporaries if that's your sad kink.
It's probably one of mine I confess, so I enjoyed listening to Journey to the Moon & Beyond by Mort enormously yesterday. It's the latest re-release from a balding, bespectacled and mostachioed man hunched over a mixing desk from long ago in the photo below. The record itself is as weird as you could possibly want. Start proselytizing right now why don't you. Friends are there to be wound up after all.
This is time travel to strange days long ago. The moment when the space age became an almost tangible reality and our heads were blown. And I grew up in it so enjoyed this utterly loopy and unhinged soundtrack to the 1969 moonlanding immensely. A teenage musical prodigy, born in 1924 , Garson served in World War II before working with Pop stars like Cliff Richard, Brenda Lee, and Bobby Darin and having a Number One hit with his works as an arranger on 1963's ultra out there Our Day Will Come with vocal group Ruby & the Romantics.
That still doesn't prepare you for Journey to the Moon & Beyond though. If Our Day Will Come is out there, this one has cut loose from its moorings and has no intention of ever returning to the mothership. Moogie Wonderland. It's only thirty three minutes in total and recalls the strangest children's television of the times, The Magic Roundabout, The Clangers. Whacky Races and The Hair Bear Bunch. I can't recommend it more highly.
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