Mort Garson - The Wozard Of Iz

5.5 - USA - 1968

Whilst trolling through vintage electronica records (and being disappointed with the results, “Electric To Me Turn” being a rare exception), I put this in the old earholes, and “Hol-ee Shit!”, I thought at first.  At first.  Unfortunately, however, this bizarre synth-backed, hippie reworking of The Wizard Of Oz quickly blows its load after the clean-up three-four punch of “Upset Strip” and “Never Follow The Yellow-Green Road”.  Like the Sven Libaek orchestrated Grass, the Wozard quickly devolves into annoying strainedly hippie dialogue, albeit with tuneless synth doodles instead of lite-jazz gospel-rock.  A couple of actual songs appear in the second half, but, other than aforementioned Duo of Awesomeness, they can’t save the day.