Customer Reviews

Grayfolded

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you're looking for the Dead's folksy, rocky blues, this CDis *not* for you. Immediately turn around & run the other direction. Fast.

But, if you like their trancy, esoteric jamming, order copies for home, work, *and* the car. I enjoy this CD. It's a trip. All by itself. Headphones. CD. Launch into inner space. The open quality of the music lulls the mind into a state where old constructs bend and ego chatter stills. Anticipation. Waiting for something to happen, the music to bridge, and it does--to another bridge.

Grayfolded (gra' ful ded) (folded gray matter) (brain) (mind body interface) layers and seduces. I still find myself waiting for them to segue into a rocking blues number. St. Stephen or Truckin' or *something* but know it just keeps segueing along bridging and shifting consciousness like the spaces between objects walking between things and the tween becomes concrete the negative space solid reality while "things" dissipate into the spaces between nothing.

Words cannot do it justice. It's a Dead trip. Grok? Then get the CD.

It could be argued that the first ever plunderphonics record was the Grateful Dead's Anthem Of The Sun from 1969. In this they overlaid studio techniques involving overdubs, phasing, echo, backward tapes, pitch and speed shifting onto a complex collage of live concert performances that centered on That's It For The Other One, which was itself superimposed over a skeletal studio rhythm track. Therefore it is especially fitting that the acknowledged master of the medium, John Oswald, should devote this two-disc set to a single piece by the Grateful Dead.

Dark Star is best known in its elongated form on the album Live/Dead, the only Grateful Dead record owned by John Oswald at the start of this project (an extract of the Live/Dead version also appeared in the film Zabriskie Point). The song began life as a sub-three minute single recorded during the sessions for Anthem Of The Sun, but its suitability as a jumping-off point for extended instrumental experimentation led to it becoming an on and off stage favourite for over twenty-five years; and since the Dead (and kerzillion bootleggers) made audio documents of all their concerts, a vast archive of over 100 performances was available as source material for John Oswald's 1995 piece, Grayfolded. Forty hours' worth of these were digitally transferred to use on the project.

Using samples as short as one quarter of a second and rarely longer than 15 seconds, the resulting Grayfolded is an extraordinary technical and sonically hallucinatory time-warped achievement, reconstructed from performances of Dark Star dating between January 1968 and September 1993. Each disc comprises one complete assembled and perfectly lysergic performance that never was, the first disc being Transitive Axis and the second entitled Mirror Ashes, each with their own subtle conceptual distinctions.

Since the early seventies, in his plunderphonic pieces, John Oswald has tried to amplify the qualities that were most striking to him in the work of the artists he was plundering. In the case of the Dead, this was their extended live playing style. Consequently, by exaggerating the length of the piece Dark Star while attempting furthermore to translate the complete feel of the Grateful Dead live experience into an ambient dance outer-space type of record, he has created a virtual super-real definition of what Dark Star is.

The piece was commissioned by the Grateful Dead and when Phil Lesh commented that he would like to hear more of Oswald's landmark "folding" effects, he added to Mirror Ashes for his benefit a two second clip whereby the whole hour of Transitive Axis was heard, having been folded 16,384 times. This is just one example of the obsessively complex nature of the construction of this sublime work.

Essential to any Deadhead collection, this is a record that can both be listened to intently, enveloped by headphones, as I would ideally recommend, or ignominiously made to function ambiently, Eno-style, as background music to aid household or office chores, or in the car. It also has wonderfully expansive liner notes by Rob Bowman, and comprehensive time-maps, showing from where each sample was taken.

How many times have you heard a COMPLETELY unique, one-of-a-kind album? Well, this is it. Oswald uses the studio as an instument, creating what he hears in the Grateful Dead's 30+ years of performing their signature tune "Dark Star". The way he melts together different jam sessions, some recorded 20 years apart, is just amazing. The remastering is superb, and the sense of cohesiveness is unbelievable.

And you can take the individual "Songs" (each track runs into the next, however, forming one 107-minute-long mega-track) and listen to them individually, and they still sound great.

My favorite part is the beginning of disc two (Thousands of Jerrys shout "The transitive nightfall of diamonds" in unison) and the twenty-eight minutes immediately following. The "space" section (Oswald calles it "cease tone beam", which is also a great double pun) is positively disturbing at night in the dark with headphones on.

An interesting side note: disc 2 contains 3 minutes of extra material before the start. To find this "hidden track", start the CD and immediatley hit the "reverse skip" button. Hold it down until the CD display shows -3:02. Then release the button and listen.

When I first bought this album I wasn't sure what I was getting into. All I knew was that Robert Hunter and the Grateful Dead produced it and thats's all that mattered. It contains nothing but "Dark Star" over and over again, and I was saying to myself "what a great idea". As soon as I played the first disc I realized that this was a keeper, because the melodic tunes and rythyms that are produced from this album really get underneath your skin. You feel as though you are drifting into space. This is one of the very few double CD's that I can listen to through entirely.Compiled on the inside cover is a list of the Dark Star's that the Dead have played and it also lists the date, and how long the track is. As a Grateful Dead fan, I think this compilation is a great addition to any Deadhead's collection because you really get a sense of joy from listening to such great music.

Possibly the best 'version' of Dark Star, this one stratches way out there and shimmers throughout.

Here's a recent discovery: Slap on Disc 2 and begin playing track 1. Once it's playing, immediately reverse the track. You'll find there's and additional 3 minutes of hidden music. Well okay, it's not music per se, but it is 3 minutes of classic Dead feedback folded onto itself. Meaning some is played forward while some is played backward, all of which is heard simultaneously. Far out.

Place disc 2 (Mirror Ashes) in your cd player. Hit play and pause at the beginning of track one. Hit your reverse track scan button. There's over 3 minutes of bonus material before the first track.

This recording is an excellent example of meandering filled-space music.One song.Highlights on vocals and certain instruments during different stages of their thirty year career make this a wonder to behold.Even though the GD didn't put IT together,it is still a must. It really breaks down to whether you like licorice or not?

i'm new to the grateful dead and i love this CD. i never listened to a dead studio album or concert except for to hear it when my friends played them, it never did much for me. i usually listen to music that is more strange, i can recommend this to people whose taste are far out there. i came to this project by hearing about john oswald's other projects and i like this better than his other plunderphonic music (which can be overly ironic or just too intense to listen to very often, although it is superb). this is a journey through sound. i don't konw if the dead's actual dark star jams were this spaced out, but this album is all over the place. from the bouncy guitar solos that i usually associate with them, to abstract guitar interweavings, noise-rock, feedback, and quiet ambience. just to clear up some other reviews, this is not a compilation of dark star performances but actual samples of dozens and dozens layered on top of each other and mixed with extreme skill. that is missing the point, however. this sounds like a totally organic jam that builds naturally. not like some of john oswald's other music that could sound to some people like your entire CD collection skipping randomly (but is also highly structured). I recommend these two discs for fans of improvised music and experimental rock.

Disc One -- an absolutely amazing collage of different Dark Stars from 1968 to 1992, twisting and turning through all manner of changes, restful to downright disturbing, some scary feedback and a dramatic Spanish Jam sequence thrown in for good measure.

Disc Two -- not so inspired, but pretty good.

Five (dark) stars overall -- I'd give disc one six or more stars were it possible!

There are only two little problems with this set: (1.) Oswald could have included more late 1969-70 renditions of "Dark Star," namely the increasingly abstract feedback-aleatory segments after the first verse (11/8/69, 12/10/69, and 11/8/70 provide excellent examples of what I am talking about), and (2.) Disc 2 could have been at least thirty minutes longer. (And I have just now found out about the hidden feedback track that appears at the start of Disc 2.)

That being said, Grayfolded is a stunning masterpiece that shows just how amazing the Grateful Dead were in live performance. Especially during the years 1968-74, before they became more slick and predictable in their approach to their concerts (and certainly before certain band members' off-stage practices became problematic in many ways, not the least of which was draining their creativity, and more importantly, their desire and energy to explore musical ideas), the band developed a remarkable language, mixing jazz, space music, and avant-garde exploration with rock instrumentation. "Dark Star" made it clear to their audience that this was not just another rock band. Instead, this was more like what a meeting of the minds between Beethoven, Haydn, Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Claude Debussy, and Bill Monroe would have sounded like.

As others have suggested, if you are new to the Dead, you might want to start off with Workingman's Dead or American Beauty, then progress to Europe '72, Live Dead, any of the Dick's Picks series, and Hundred Year Hall. Then it's onward and outward to Anthem of the Sun, and THEN to Grayfolded. Once you have experienced this incredible sonic artistry you will never want to even accidentally hear another Britney Spears song again.