The Wozard Of Iz

Highly recommended to fans of the more extreme late sixties sounds! I rate this just a whisker shy of five stars (there is no four and half star option here)This is about 60% spoken word, over electronic sounds and about 40% `conventional' music and so falls outside the category of Rock / Pop music as we know it. Its an experimental hybrid album that could for instance have been transmitted as a BBC radio play or musical. I'm no fan of headphones but this is definitely one to listen to on phones as spoken word booming out of a hi-fi is a bit much and the neighbours will wonder what in hell you are listening to and there is a vivid stereo picture.Its is closest to the United States of America's eponymous 1968 masterpiece with a hit of Frank Zappa's satire and tape experiments but it is also completely unique, very psychedelic and pretty intense - one of those no-holds-barred psychedelic records that has dipped its toe in the waters of madness (and there were quite a few). Jacques Wilson's lyrics and story are among the best and most coherent of the late sixties - some ferocious anti-social commentary here. It's a concept album not too far from SF Sorrow but for my money, more intelligent and original and extreme. It bears no resemblance to Mort Garson's the Zodiac Cosmic sounds which was an exploitation album the same team had been commissioned to write at the record company's whim - this is a lot more genuine and heartfelt. It is certainly as much Jacques Wilson's project as Mort Garson's - more probably but Garson goes at it full throttle with radical moog bass-lines and ferocious hi-end sounds. The album ends strongly with a few excellent `conventional' songs that are up there with the United States of America and similar in style.With the above provisos it is also one of those weird late sixties discoveries that make buying obscure records worthwhile - just as you are loosing faith with a string of clunkers.