Album Spotlight: Grayfolded (1994-5)

In lieu of a new album review, I thought I might give the spotlight to an album that didn't get its fair share of it the first time around. I'll be doing something like this every once in a while.

Being a pretty big fan of the Grateful Dead, I've dedicated a pretty large chunk of my music library to their live shows, which is really the only way that you can listen to them and get the full feel of their capabilities. Top picks would include Live/Dead, their run of shows at Winterland culminating in The Grateful Dead Movie, and their epic Europe '72 tour, which has recently been reissued with every set in a mammoth box set, which, if I had the money, I might just be getting done listening to due to its length. But of all their shows, most fans can agree, the times that they unleash 'Dark Star' are amazing shows. 

John Oswald

'Dark Star', originally a 2 minute single, was first immortalized on record as the amazingly trippy jam on Live/Dead, with over 23 minutes of amazing guitar solos, bass lines and atmosphere. But why settle for just one recording of 'Dark Star' at a time? That's the idea behind Grayfolded. In the early 90s, bass player Phil Lesh was in talks with producer John Oswald, who specializes in plunderphonics (think the Love album that George and Giles Martin did with the Beatles catalog), to create an entire album using pieces of dozens of iterations of 'Dark Star' from live soundboard recordings. One of the great things about the Grateful Dead live shows is how well cataloged and recorded they are (I've got a recording of Jerry Garcia playing with the Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers in a Jewish Community Center in 1962; the fans and recorders left no stone un-turned). The wealth of this live material made it possible for this almost 2 hour version of 'Dark Star', containing performances by everyone that has been in the band from 1965 to 1995. 

Phil Lesh

The intricate layering on this record is its strong suit, where it can take multiple performances, which are vastly different, and match the same mood as it shifts between different sections. Every once in a while, you'll hear some familiar riff or solo from a performance you've heard countless times, and it's really interesting to hear what Oswald has put in with it. If you're a fan of the Dead, you really need to check this one out. It was originally released as two single releases in '94 and '95, but there now exists a two disc reissue to get your full 'Dark Star' remix on. I've rarely heard of this album in conversation about the Dead, but I'm not sure why. Granted, it's a non canonical release, but this album truly embodies their live sound: unrelenting psychedelic jams, face melting guitar solos, and a band that can follow each other so well, you'd swear they wrote out the whole song. The fact that most of their live material is improvised never ceases to amaze me, and nowhere is that more true than on 'Dark Star'.

Check in later this week for my opinion on the long awaited debut LP from Skrillex, Recess.

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