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  • Grateful Dead – Grayfolded (Extended Edition, 3-LP Vinyl)
  • Grateful Dead – Grayfolded (Extended Edition, 3-LP Vinyl)
  • Grateful Dead – Grayfolded (Extended Edition, 3-LP Vinyl)
  • Grateful Dead – Grayfolded (Extended Edition, 3-LP Vinyl)

Grateful Dead – Grayfolded (Extended Alternate Edition 3-LP Vinyl)

$ 69.99
$ 69.99
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Learn more about this release in our Grateful Dead's Grayfolded announcement from May 2014 on jambands.com.

This alternate 3-LP pressing of Grayfolded offers collectors another edition of John Oswald's experimental masterpiece—over 100 "Dark Star" performances from 1968-1993 deconstructed, layered, and "folded" into two hour-long compositions. In 1993, Phil Lesh invited Canadian composer Oswald to explore the Dead's vault with one mission: create something new using the band's legendary improvisational centerpiece. The result, pressed at Optimal in Germany and housed in a triple-gatefold jacket, represents one of the most ambitious experimental projects in Dead history, creating the only Dead-related release featuring every musician who ever played with the band.

Grayfolded isn't a remix or mashup—it's a new composition built entirely from Dead performances, with multiple Jerry Garcias harmonizing across decades, several Phil Leshes playing counterpoint to each other, and keyboard passages morphing between Pigpen, Keith Godchaux, Brent Mydland, and Vince Welnick. Oswald's nearly invisible hand guides the piece through passages that feel both familiar and completely alien: "Dark Star" is always present but never quite arrives, the opening theme becoming a transitory motif that shifts across 25 years of performances. Rolling Stone praised it as "literally a hundred or so great nights rolled into one extraordinary extended high."

What makes Grayfolded essential—and divisive—is how it honors the Dead's experimental spirit while pushing beyond what the band themselves attempted. The 3-LP format allows Oswald's compositions to unfold across six sides, with transitions designed specifically for vinyl. For Heads who want to hear "Dark Star" as cosmic event rather than song, Grayfolded is definitive.

Extended Edition 3-LP alternate pressing. Pressed at Optimal, Germany. Triple-gatefold. Over 100 "Dark Star" performances (1968-1993) recomposed by John Oswald.