Art Metropole

#03730

Grayfolded

Artist

John Oswald

Date

2005

Publisher

Fony

Format

Audio

Details

Two Cd Set

Size

5.5 × 5 cm

John Oswald’s FONY label has decided to reissue the critically and popularly acclaimed 2CD Grateful Dead plunderphonic GRAYFOLDED. Out of print since June 2000, the 2004 edition (10th year anniversary) features exclusive background info and interviews with Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Robert Hunter plus 2 “time maps” which chart the source Dark Stars used and a 10,000 word essay by musicologist Rob Bowman. Gary Lambert, editor of the Grateful Dead Almanac said : “The decade-leaping GRAYFOLDED is an astonishingly accurate evocation of that sublime, hallucinatory ‘unstuck in time’ feeling one gets at a really good Grateful Dead show.”

When Phil Lesh asked me to plunderphonicize the Dead’s music, this song seemed to be the obvious place to start. With the invitation of the band, I’ve had the opportinity to comb through the (also legendary) Grateful Dead Vaults and to listen to all the performance recordings of this piece on file. These board mixes are the sources for GRAYFOLDED. I’ve collected what I think are interesting portions from over a hundred performances, accumulating 40 hours of digital copies of the master tapes.

The music slides back and forth over the years, often shifting from the recent present back to 1969 or the early 70s in the twinkling of an arpeggio. Within this Tralfamadorian time scheme there are some familiar moments and many unique surprises. There are a few appearances by the Grateful Dead Orchestra (multiple Weirs, Leshes, Kreutzmanns etc., all playing together) and the Jerry Garcia Chorus (in which a time shifted Captain Trips is heard harmonizing with himself over the years). For some this disc will conjour specific memories. For others it will reveal how wild and embracing the music of the Grateful Dead can be. – John Oswald/1995