Grayfolded
produced by John Oswald featuring the Grateful Dead song "Dark Star". Using over a hundred different performances of the song, recorded live between 1968 and 1993, Oswald, using a process he calls "plunderphonics", built, layered, and "folded" all of them to produce two large, recomposed versions, each about one hour long.
The first disc of Grayfolded, titled Transitive Axis, was released in 1994, and the second disc, Mirror Ashes, was released in 1995, both on the Swell/Artifacts label. The two discs were released together in 1996. Grayfolded was re-released by Snapper Music in 1999, and by Fony in 2004.
It was released as a three-disc vinyl LP on August 12, 2014, on the Important Records label.
Grayfolded is one of only three Grateful Dead albums that features the participation of every musician who was ever in the group, the others being the box sets So Many Roads (1965–1995) and 30 Trips Around the Sun (as well as the latter's 4-disc version).
In an interview in 1995 Oswald described how the project came about: Phil Lesh called me up and talked me into doing it. At that point, I hadn't listened to any Grateful Dead music in about twenty years. I did think I was qualified, because I do think it's often a good idea to come into a project without a lot of prior knowledge and get kind of an alien's overview of what the music seems to be, and then put in your own two cents of what you think it should be. And I think that was the case for this. During the course of working on it, I went to a couple of Grateful Dead concerts, but
other than that, I haven't listened to anything except these hundred versions of "Dark Star" that I found in the vaults.
On another occasion Oswald said that he had been asked by musician and journalist David Gans to produce something very short, he explained his response to this suggestion:
What interested me most about the Grateful Dead was their extended playing style. I wrote a counter-proposal to David saying,
'Well, I've been thinking about it and all I can hear is the opposite, something very long.
Lindsay Planer said, "[John Oswald's] uncanny compositions—which he terms "plunderphonics"—are sculpted
by morphing and layering multiple incarnations of a song to make a thoroughly unique version.... While it may not be everyone's blend of surreal sonic psychedelics, Grayfolded is well executed and worthy of inclusion in any Deadhead collection."
Disc 1 – Transitive Axis
"Novature (Formless Nights Fall)" – 1:19
"Pouring Velvet" – 2:58
"In Revolving Ash Light" – 17:00
"Clouds Cast" – 7:13
"Through" – 8:52
"Fault Forces" – 6:19
"The Phil Zone" – 4:45
"La Estrella Oscura" – 9:33
"Recedes (While We Can)" – 1:56
Disc 2 – Mirror Ashes
"Fold" – 2:10 (hidden track)
"Transilience" – 0:07
"73rd Star Bridge Sonata" – 13:41
"Cease Tone Beam" – 12:45
"The Speed of Space" – 8:49
"Dark Matter Problem/Every Leaf Is Turning" – 6:42
"Foldback Time" – 1:33
Personnel
Jerry Garcia – lead guitar, vocals
Bob Weir – rhythm guitar, vocals
Phil Lesh – bass, vocals
Bill Kreutzmann – drums
Mickey Hart – drums
Ron "Pigpen" McKernan – keyboards, vocals, harmonica, percussion
Tom Constanten – keyboards
Keith Godchaux – keyboards
Donna Jean Godchaux – vocals
Bruce Hornsby – piano, keyboards, vocals
Brent Mydland – keyboards, vocals
Vince Welnick – keyboards, vocals
John Oswald – arranger
length expanded size cdr WAVE problems fmt ratio filename
1:20.32 14187308 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.5069 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD1 Transitive Axis\01 - Novature (Formless Nights Fall).flac
2:58.27 31462748 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.4097 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD1 Transitive Axis\02 - Pouring Velvet.flac
16:59.74 179925692 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.4682 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD1 Transitive Axis\03 - In Revolving Ash Light.flac
7:13.26 76442396 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.5086 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD1 Transitive Axis\04 - Clouds Cast.flac
8:52.31 93917756 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.4487 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD1 Transitive Axis\05 - Through.flac
6:19.03 66862700 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.5572 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD1 Transitive Axis\06 - Fault Forces.flac
4:45.71 50441036 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.4006 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD1 Transitive Axis\07 - The Phil Zone.flac
9:33.12 101105468 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.5372 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD1 Transitive Axis\08 - La Estrella Oscura.flac
1:57.33 20716460 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.5630 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD1 Transitive Axis\09 - Recedes (While We Can).flac
3:00.02 31756748 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.3796 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD2 Mirror Ashes\00 - Hidden Track.flac
0:45.15 7973324 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.3106 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD2 Mirror Ashes\01 - Transilence.flac
14:25.20 152633084 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.5030 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD2 Mirror Ashes\02 - 73rd Star Bridge Sonata.flac
13:27.20 142401884 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.2837 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD2 Mirror Ashes\03 - Cease Tone Beam.flac
9:23.48 99426140 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.5576 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD2 Mirror Ashes\04 - The Speed of Space.flac
7:15.07 76750508 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.5375 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD2 Mirror Ashes\05 - Dark Matter Problem + Every Leaf is Turning.flac
1:32.53 16353500 B --- -- ---xx flac 0.3743 John Oswald, Phil Lesh and The Grateful Dead - Grayfolded Flac\CD2 Mirror Ashes\06 - Foldback Time.flac
109:49.24 1162356752 B 0.4674 (16 files)
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