Music For Ferns (2024)
Music For Ferns (2024) is out today. The mini-album is a short instrumental cycle of synthesizer and electronic music dedicated to the ontogenetic life-cycle of the fern. The music features soft, warm, organic, and, at times, shimmering tones created with a variety of analog synthesizers from the 1970s/1980s for plants (and people) to listen to. You can stream it on Spotify, Apple Music, etc., or support the project directly by purchasing the album on Bandcamp.
Finally, you can watch the official music video on YouTube that features the music of Music For Ferns set to videography of wild cinnamon ferns in a New England forest during late September 2024:
Background
During the pandemic, I discovered a sub-genre of early electronic music written for plants that originated with Mort Garson’s now cult-classic 1976 release of Mother Earth’s Plantasia. I fell in love with the warm, organic tones of plant music that was largely composed with analog synthesizers from the 1970s and 1980s. Music For Ferns continues this tradition by creating vintage synthesizer music using instruments sourced from the same decades, including a vintage minimoog model d from 1973, a yamaha cs-40m from 1979, a roland juno-60, a sequential circuits six-trak, a roland d-50, and an ensoniq sq-80.
In addition to musical sources, Music For Ferns was also inspired by the lush cinnamon ferns of New England. Shown here is photography by my brother, Brant Tichko, who felt inspired to capture a few plants in their New-England ecology:
