If anyone was going to put the “high” in “high fantasy” in the 1970s, it was going to be Ralph Bakshi, and that’s really seems like the most likely explanation for the 1977 animated cult classic Wizards, which attempted – successfully in places, it has to be said – to inject earthy (and earthly) elements into the fantasy genre. The movie gets a lot of help from its score, which combines ’70s synths, a funk/jazz/rock sensibility very much of its era, and the kind of instrumentation one might expect of this genre. Andrew Belling’s music for Wizard is the same kind of fearless blending of genres that the movie itself is, fittingly.
If you’re in a mood for something not a million miles removed from a funky ’70s jam, you can’t go wrong with tracks like “War Against Peace / Weehawk Disturbs The Peace / The Bubble Bursts” and “Battle & Peewhittle’s Death” – though the track titles read as very soundtrackish, they’re very listenable slices of funk/rock if you’re up for this particular vintage of those particular styles. (One listener’s dated sounds are another’s comfort food. There’s nothing wrong with a good old ’70s jam-out.)
And yet tracks like “Snow Drift / Snow Time / Assassins In The Snow” and “Moving Out” give you the more traditional vibe you’d expect from an adventure film (in synthesized form, mind you, but almost always mixed in with some live players, particularly on woodwinds, timpani, brass, and percussion. Some tracks straddle the fence between the two styles, transitioning from traditional to more funk/rock oriented in the blink of an eye. Much like the movie, the music keeps you on your toes, even if it’s purely a listening experience. Interestingly, Belling allows his small ensemble to sound sparse to great effect in “The Elves Are Coming”.
Occasionally the electronic elements of the music get a bit weird with it, as in the final portion of “Now Begins Our Final Battle / Avatar Equestrian / On The Road To Scortch”; bit of “Fairy Attack” almost sound a bit Radiophonic Workshop-esque. As dated as it may sound now, the Wizards score was actually seriously ahead of its time. The album is opened and closed with two different edits of “Time Will Tell”, both with vocals by Susan Anton, but also stylistically similar to the rest of the score.
The sad news is: Wizards is long out of print. Given a relatively small print run of only 2,000 copies over a decade ago, and La-La Land – which is normally very good about keeping the original pages for its extinct titles archived in an out-of-print section – has scrubbed any mention of it from their site, and there is no digital edition. It’s like the soundtrack is as much of a fever dream as the movie itself was. A pity it’s now hard to get hold of, because it’s a very effective case study in combining traditional and non-traditional instrumentation and styles, from an era where it truly was a revolutionary experiment. This might just be one of those cases where the score outclasses its film.
- Time Will Tell (Full Version) featuring Susan Anton (2:11)
- The Story Begins / Scortch 3000 Years Later / Fairy Hookers / Peace Goes Forth / Peace In The Valley Of Montagar (7:03)
- War Against Peace / Weehawk Disturbs The Peace / The Bubble Bursts (2:45)
- Jukebox Junky Blues (1:26)
- Blackwolf Finds The Record / War & Frog / We Can’t Lose (1:37)
- Moving Out (1:54)
- Battle & Peewhittle’s Death (2:05)
- Now Begins Our Final Battle / Avatar Equestrian / On The Road To Scortch (1:27)
- Fairy Attack (1:43)
- Fairy Drums / Jungle Drums / Gargoyle Once A Day (1:42)
- Snow Drift / Snow Time / Assassins In The Snow (2:22)
- Tanks Again & Betrayal / Peace Isn’t, Elinore Doesn’t (1:20)
- To All Our Ships / Larry Gets Weehawk (0:52)
- The Elves Are Coming (1:30)
- Gathering Of The Heavies / The Charge Of The Heavy Brigade / The Battle Picks Up Tempo / The Punchup / The Elves Lose (6:36)
- Weehawk Finds Elinore / Elinore’s OK / Blackwolf Bites It / Final History / Bye (3:29)
- Time Will Tell (Film Version) featuring Susan Anton (2:00)
Released by: La-La Land Records
Release date: October 23, 2012
Total running time: 42:36