Description
John Oswald – Grayfolded: Transitive Axis (CD)
This is the original One CD release
Label: Artifact Music / Swell – S/A 1969-1996
Format: CD, Album
Country: Canada
Released: 1994
Tracklist:
1 Novature (Formless Nights Fall) 1:19
2 Pouring Velvet 2:58
3 In Revolving Ash Light 17:00
4 Clouds Cast 7:13
5 Through 8:52
6 Fault Forces 6:19
7 The Phil Zone 4:45
8 La Estrella Oscura 9:33
9 Recedes (While We Can) 1:56
Credits:
Composed By [Reproduced By] – John Oswald
Other [Diplomacy] – Henry Kaiser
Other [Keeper Of The Vault] – Dick Latvala
Performer – The Grateful Dead
Written-By – Oswald, Skjellyfetti (tracks: 1 to 6, 8, 9), Lesh (tracks: 7)
Notes:
Grayfolded – Part One: Transitive Axis.
Tracks 5 and 6 not included on later Artifact Reissue.
But tracks 5 and 6 do appear on both Snapper Music 2 CD editions, the Fony 2004 2 CD edition and the double LP Important vinyl edition.
Taken from over 100 performances of Dark Star recorded between 1968 and 1993. Built, layered and “folded” to produce one large, new re-composed Dark Star. Original recordings of the Grateful Dead in performance have been processed using Plunderphonic techniques.
Grayfolded was originally released as a first single disc only available by mailorder. Purchasers of “Transitive Axis” were then encouraged to subscribe for the second disc “Mirror Ashes”. At the beginning, the set was exclusively for purchasers of the first disc and subscribers of the second one but Grayfolded was afterwards regularly distributed as a two-disc set.
John Oswald can be contacted c/o Mystery Lab, Box 7 Station P, Toronto, Canada M5S 2S6
This is the original ONE CD release released in a 2CD slim jewel case. Originally released as one cd but with intention to release a second cd. That’s why this cd has a slim ‘double disc’ jewel case. A label sticker ‘Made in Canada’ on the back of the jewel case. First (empty) tray has broken ‘teeth’. CD and Inlay in very condition. See photo’s, they are of the original object.
Reviews:
++++++++++++++ The first disc of the GRAYFOLDED 2 CD package was advance-released in July ’94. It was available mostly by phone order and sold 25,000 copies over the following year. Advance mail-order subscriptions for the 2nd disc amounted to another 5,000 discs. The 2-disc package was released in September of ’95 with an initial shipping of 50,000 discs, mostly pre-sold. All discs were manufactured in Canada, where the 2-disc pressing officially pre-shipped Gold and overall sales are now Platinum. GRAYFOLDED did particularly well in the critical arena. Besides being on end of the year best of lists in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Wire, UHF (best trance/ambient CD), & several other publications, it was listed as the Album of the Decade (thus far) in the Toronto Sun. ++++++++++++
nr. 1 …..The ‘studio as instrument’ is the sort of indulgence passed off as insight which we have to contend with for years. John Oswald, the plunderphonics man who so riled Michael Jackson, the artist who painted Dolly Parton into a man, who took Beefheart and the Beatles to places undreamt of, has turned his attention to DARK STAR. This one however, is a commission given the green light by The Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh. From a constellation of DARK STAR’s 1968 – 1993 Oswald has assembled nine movements into a 59.59 minute reformation. Neither Oswald’s nor the Dead’s property, TRANSITIVE AXIS is a magnificent heresy. Oswald is soliciting orders at 253 College Street, Suite 295, Toronto, M5T1R5, Canada. If only the Dead were this good… KEN HUNT, MOJO, November 1994, no. 12
nr. 2… “Absolutely brilliant. Even casual Dead fans will be floored by this astonishing new project by Toronto’s John Oswald. Commissioned by the band, Oswald has has taken bits and pieces of no fewer than 51 performances of the song and created a seamless one-hour, nine-movement composition. Stunning. Nothing else I heard in 1994 even comes close.” –JOHN SAKAMOTO, The Toronto Sun
nr. 3… “This project, spread across two CDs and beautifully packaged, is a ravishing resolution to the age-old dialectical argument between improvised and composed music. Mirror Ashes” partially constructed in response to Phil Lesh’s criticism of the first [disc] not being experimental enough, travels deeper into the cold reaches of [Dark Star]. This far inside its density threatens to pull it apart. It’s stunning in every sense, and a wonderful vindication of Lesh’s faith in the project and in New Music as a whole. -?, The Wire
nr. 4.… “Oswald treats the Dead with his usual ruthless affection. He shoots fearless high voltage into his Grateful Frankenstein. GRAYFOLDED is far more penetrating and hypnotic than its cousin, 1991’s INFRARED ROSES. Oswald’s creation grows more hallucinatory than any Dead lineup could, because suddenly there will be a host of lead guitars going at once, or different parts of the song’s arrangement intertwined with superhuman grace. It’s hard to take GRAYFOLDED out of the CD tray.” -MILO MILES, Village Voice
nr. 5…. “Grayfolded” is literally a hundred or so great nights rolled into one extraordinary, extended high. Given the run of the Dead tape archive, the Canadian composer and sampling outlaw John Oswald excised, reconfigured and overlaid live vocal and instrumental episodes of “Dark Star” going back to 1968, fashioning two CDs’ worth of gorgeous sonic origami. The result is unlike anything the Dead ever managed in real time (like the chorus of Garcias, 20 years apart in age, chiming together on the word “dark”) but stays unerringly true to the wide-open spirit of the song.” -DAVID FRICKE, Rolling Stone
nr. 6... “Grateful Dead fans embraced the first edition of GRAY FOLDED, but one needn’t be a Deadhead to appreciate Oswald’s work. Running nearly two hours, it’s a sonic epic full of surprises, as Oswald layers, echoes, loops, folds, spindles and mutilates dozens of different recordings of the band . The results range from the familiar to the exotic, from jazzy interludes that you might mistake for straight live re cording to skull-rattling feedback symphonies that are clearly not of this Earth. It is a fascinating, if unusual, introduction to the Dead’s music, a powerful piece of music in its own right .” – CHRIS DAFOE, The Globe and Mail
nr. 7… “The best news of all… is the release of GRAYFOLDED (try saying it out loud), one of the most astonishing records I’ve ever come across. The double CD, lasting almost two blissful hours, has been rightly acclaimed as the ultimate Dark Star, the one you always hoped the Dead would one day get round to playing.t doesn’t get any weirder than GRAYFOLDED. The record is an astonishing last testament to Garcia’s blissfully chiming and exploratory guitar, sometimes ugly and menacing, like a terrifying bad trip, more often soaring sublimely to the heavens.” –CHARLES SPENCER, London Daily Telegraph
nr. 8.… “As legendary as their live shows may be, the Grateful Dead are famous for the unrepresentative quality of their recordings. Oswald, on the other hand, little-known for his saxophone improvisations, is one of the most meticulous tape manipulators on the planet. Given a free hand to find peak musical moments and graft them into a seamless, time-travelling whole, Oswald has finally translated the best of the live Grateful Dead phenomenon onto disc. It might be more than the next best thing to being there.” –DERK RICHARDSON, San Francisco Bay Guardian
nr. 9… “There is a new Grateful Dead album on the streets.Titled Grayfolded, the CD is a sprawling spectacular new recording of the Dead’s famous live juggernaut, Dark Star, and the buzz about it is hot indeed. Magical and psychedelic, Grayfolded sounds like classic Dead and should trigger deep memories of your favorite personal dead experience.” – ANDREW JONES, Montreal Gazette
nr. 10... “Connecting 25 years worth of performances of the Grateful Dead song “Dark Star”, Oswald has alchemized these dormant tracks into a brilliant tapestry that’s an entirely new kind of listening experience.” –CHRIS VAUTOUR, Chart
nr. 11… “For those who felt that, at 23:15 on “Live/Dead” “Dark Star was being sold short, then “Grayfolded is a dream come true. You may argue about who’s the true composer of such a work, but the results are phenomenal.” ***** Top Album release of ’94 –MARK PAYTRESS, The Record Collector
“The best Dead album ever?”
Top Album release of ’94
–PETER DOGGETT, The Record Collector
nr. 12... “It’s an extraordinary piece. Some Deadheads are already calling this the best Grateful Dead record ever; it’s certainly the most monumental tombstone imaginable for Jerry Garcia, an utterly convincing demonstration of his bands peculiar genius.” –ANDY GILL, London Independent
nr. 13... “Oswald’s work has resulted in a Deadhead’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, an expansive, extremely psychedelic “Dark Star” that like a sonic time machine, seamlessly traverses various eras.” **** -ROBERT WINTERS, Down Beat
nr. 14... “If you want experimental and free form style reminiscent of some of John Coltrane and Miles Davis’s work, or even industrial noise bands like Nurse with Wound and Throbbing Gristle, or composers like Varese, then GRAYFOLDED is for you.” A+++ –ROB WEINER, Progrock
nr. 15... “Oswald masterfully overlaps and segues multiple versions from performances throughout the Dead’s history into a whole that is surprisingly coherent and still true to the original spirit of the piece.” -BLAIR JACKSON, Mix
nr. 16... “Oswald brilliantly overlaps and segues multiple versions from throughout the Dead’s history into a whole that is surprisingly coherent and still true to the original spirit of Dark Star.” –BLAIR JACKSON, The Unbroken Chain
nr. 17... “One very fine aspect of ‘Mirror Ashes’ [disc2] is the inclusion of quite extensive liner notes, penned by Rob Bowman. Bowman includes in-depth interview quotes from Garcia, Lesh, and Hunter about what ‘Dark Star’ means to each of them. This feature alone is damn near worth the price of admission, and surely surpasses any revalations to date on the subject. Bowman has been awarded a Grammy for his liner notes in the past, and it is easy to see why. A thorough history of the song is depicted in prose, and then for the listener’s orientation, a visual ‘map’ outlines the different versions of ‘Dark Star’ used in the production of both discs. Very cool indeed.” MIKE MAYNARD, The Unbroken Chain
nr. 18… “The decade-leaping GRAYFOLDED is an astonishly accurate evocation of that sublime, hallucinatory ‘unstuck in time’ feeling one gets at a really good Grateful Dead show.” – GARY LAMBERT, The Grateful Dead Almanac
nr. 19… “Awesome is surely an abused adjective in the mid-nineties but [GRAYFOLDED] is awesome. Oswald, amazingly, has seemingly caught the essense of the Dead. Indeed, given a casual listen, one could assume that this was what was played on one extaordinarly cosmic night, as the Dead pushed the song’s many crescendos, climaxes and diminuendos into new territory.” -ROB BOWMAN, The Globe & Mail
nr. 20… “This is a very psychedelic album, one that leaves your mind totally spaced-out all over the place. A very recommended release that will also please non-Deadheads.” -ANDRE VAN BOSBEKE, Crohinga Well
nr. 21… “The best Dark Star ever!” …. “One day in heaven they’d play this version” …”Perfect”… “Stunningly beautiful”… “It’s a dream come true”… “I want to hear the light show”…”This could be the best Grateful Dead CD ever…it is that good.” -comments on the Internet
thanks to mr. g. RayBrain
