Grayfolded [Live]

Editorial Reviews
Album Description
Two disc collection featuring Canadian composer & sampling outlaw John Oswald's conglomeration of Grateful Dead live recordings (particularly versions of 'Dark Star') he has molded into 'Grayfolded', the outcome of this aural collage. This release packages together the original 1994 disc with a second disc of material 'recorded' since then. A combined total of 15 tracks, with the first disc clocking in at exactly one hour & the second 46:47 long. Double slimline jewel case. 1999 release.

Grayfolded, Music, The Grateful Dead, Pop, Rock, Rock/Pop

Average customer rating:
Grayfolded
John Oswald , and Grateful Dead
Manufacturer: FONY
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Psychedelic Rock | Classic Rock | Styles | Music
Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000AA2TYA
Release Date: 2005-07-12

Tracks:

Novature (Formless Nights Fall)
Pouring Velvet
In Revolving Ash Light
Clouds Cast
Through
Fault Forces
Phil Zone
Estrella Oscura
Recedes (While We Can)
Transilience
23rd Star Bridge Sonata
Cease Tone Beam
Speed of Space
Dark Matter Problem/Every Leaf Is Turning
Foldback Time

Album Description

1995 Canadian release featuring the deleted 'Grayfolded Vol.1' & an hour long mix of 'Dark Star' comprised of bits fromover 100 performances of the tune in conjunction with the25th anniversary of it by John 'Mr. Plunderphonics' OSWALD.15 tracks total on two black & white picture CDs in a doubleslimline jewel case. The music is performed by the GratefulDead; the production is by John Oswald. Released on theSwell Artifact label.

Average customer rating:

Head Music for Deadheads
This is something else, but a good something...
four and a half, actually
Time Travel
Fantasy Illusion Dream

Grayfolded 1969-1996
John Oswald , and The Grateful Dead
Manufacturer: Swell/Artifact
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00000E127
Release Date: 1995-09-15

Tracks:

Novature (Formless Nights Fall)
Pouring Velvet
In Revolving Ash Light
Clouds Cast
Through
Fault Forces
Phil Zone
Estrella Oscura
Recedes (While We Can)

Tracks:

Transilience
73rd Star Bridge Sonata
Cease Tone Beam
Speed of Space
Dark Matter Problem/Every Leaf Is Turning
Foldback Time

Album Description

Customer Reviews:

Head Music for Deadheads.......2007-04-02

If you just like the down-home, country-sounding aspect of the Grateful Dead's music, this probably isn't the album for you. But if you love the spacy, swirling, improvisational aspect (think "Dark Star" on Live Dead), this DEFINITELY is the album for you. Pick a quiet night, settle back in your favorite chair with your earphones and a nice buzz (from whatever), close your eyes, and feast your brain! RATING: 5 "DARK" STARS!

This is something else, but a good something..........2006-02-24

Let me start off by saying that Greyfolded is NOT what you might think it is...the ultimate Dark Star. It is far from it. That said, however, it is a work of intense complexity, dexterity, and an amazing knowledge of the material. It was put together in much the same way that Anthem was done; that is, from various live performances of the Dead, except that Greyfolded is done so to the nth degree. As others have noted here, it is performed with an "orchestra" of the various Grateful Dead bands across time, faded in and out to often devastating psychedelic effect. There is even a chart at the back of the booklet showing where all of the differing performances come in and out. Greyfolded is like an alloy of these performances, producing a final product with its own properties.

Since Grayfolded is its own work, it is not the happy Darkstar that I like to bliss out on for 20 minutes at a time. However, it is nearly 2 two hours of intense Darkstar-based music and sounds, all performed by the Dead according to the meticulous arranging and puzzle-fitting efforts of John Oswald. For someone out there looking for the ultimate Darkstar, go elsewhere. However, if you want a really interesting experimental GD extraganza, pick this up! Because this doesn't deliver the ecstatic punch that Darkstar delivers, I only give this record 4 stars out of 5. However, this IS still an amazing work.

four and a half, actually.......2003-03-17

I'd give this five stars, but I'd save that for a Dead show...like a Dick's Picks or full show. However, this album serves as a testament to Dark Star, which in my opinion is the greatest song of all time, at least I'd say it's my favorite song. The Dead being the greatest musical assemblage of musicians show how over 25 years they transformed this piece, and where they could go with it, and what it's potential was. It's a [good] tune, all around and is THE signature Grateful Dead song. What more can you say?

Time Travel.......2002-12-11

For Dark Star fans(and I understand there are a few of us)this is IT(so far).
Almost two hours of the Dead doing what they did best,improvising.This is John Oswalds "version" if you will of the ultimate Dark Star.He has taken over a hundred hours of tapes from the Dead Vaults ,all of performances of Dark Star and compiled ,segued and overdubbed a symphony of the Dead.The most amazing thing is that although this set covers a thirty year timespan it sounds so perfect and so cohesive that it defies logic.It is as if we owned a time machine instead of a compact disc player as we hear Jerry Garcia in 1971 duelling with Jerry Garcia in 1991.This is the most exciting music I have heard since I bought the King Crimson ProjeKCs box set.
You know you need this set!.

Fantasy Illusion Dream.......2002-03-27

A lot of people in other reviews say that this disc doesn't sound like the "real" dark star as played by the Grateful Dead back in the '70s. Well, it's not. This is a JOHN OSWALD album - NOT a Grateful Dead album. What Oswald did was use parts of the Dead playing "Dark Star" to create his own piece.
And what a piece he created. Nearly two hours of seamless music, and all of it sounding like the paintings of Jackson Pollock, or the ultimate pipe dream. My favorite moments are the end of disc 1 and the beginning of disc 2, especially the feedback solo on "The Phil Zone". And how about the transition from "73rd Star Bridge" into "Cease Tone Beam"? Great stuff.
In some pressings of disc 2, there are three minutes of extra music hidden before the Multiple Garcias shout "transitive nightfall of diamonds". To find them, start the disc and as soon as the CD starts playing, hold down the "Reverse search" button on your CD player. The thing that shows the time will start counting backwards until it shows -3:02. When it does, release your finger and listen.

Average customer rating:

Ambient timewarp
Grayfolded Genius
Great for the non-Deadheads too!
A completely unique record
What a Transitive Nightfall

Grayfolded
Grateful Dead
Manufacturer: Recall Records UK
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00000I5MD
Release Date: 1999-10-26

Tracks:

Novature (Formless Nights Fall)
Pouring Velvet
In Revolving Ash Light
Clouds Cast
Through
Fault Forces
The Phil Zone
La Estrella Oscura
Recedes (While We Can)

Tracks:

Transilence
73rd Star Bridge Sonata
Cease Tone Beam
The Speed Of Space
Dark Matter Problem/Every Leaf Is Turning
Foldback Time

Album Description

Two disc collection featuring Canadian composer & sampling outlaw John Oswald's conglomeration of Grateful Dead live recordings (particularly versions of 'Dark Star') he has molded into 'Grayfolded', the outcome of this aural collage. This release packages together the original 1994 disc with a second disc of material 'recorded' since then. A combined total of 15 tracks, with the first disc clocking in at exactly one hour & the second 46:47 long. Double slimline jewel case. 1999 release.

Customer Reviews:

Ambient timewarp.......2007-01-13

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.

Grayfolded Genius.......2003-02-13

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!

Great for the non-Deadheads too!.......2002-12-20

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.

A completely unique record.......2002-12-10

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.

What a Transitive Nightfall.......2002-08-28

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.

Customer Reviews:

Plunderphonics, huh?.......2007-06-07

I wondered too. However, if you are a Dead fan, and enjoyed Dark Star, then you will be amazed at how this 2 disc set was constructed with many versions strung together to create the ultimate version of this long-standing performance piece.

The creator had access to the Dead's vault and knew what he wanted. I cherish my copy of this disc that was originally available through mail order only.

Average customer rating:

Grayfolded 1969-1996
John Oswald , and The Grateful Dead
Manufacturer: Swell/Artifact
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Experimental Music | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000008OFC
Release Date: 1995-03-23

Tracks:

Novature (Formless Nights Fall)
Pouring Velvet
In Revolving Ash Light
Clouds Cast
Through
Fault Forces
Phil Zone
Estrella Oscura
Recedes (While We Can)

Tracks:

Transilience
73rd Star Bridge Sonata
Cease Tone Beam
Speed of Space
Dark Matter Problem/Every Leaf Is Turning
Foldback Time

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