VARIOUS - Day Of The Dead

"Everything about Day of the Dead suggests that it long ago ceased being a fundraising exercise for the Aids charity Red Hot and turned into a painstaking labour of love. You can tell by its packaging, which is beautiful, and by the sleevenotes that gushingly attest to how obsessed its curators – the National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner – are with the album’s subject: Grateful Dead. In among the stuff about the how the spirit of Jerry Garcia lives on and the impossibility of doing the band’s legacy justice, there’s a conversation with Dead guitarist Bob Weir: when he mentions that he likes the National, the Desser twins are left incredulous at receiving a compliment from their idol. But most of all, you can tell by the sheer size of the thing: Day of the Dead goes on and on, as was the wont of the band that inspired it. The original idea was apparently to cover 10 of the Dead’s songs. In its finished form, the compilation is five CDs, 59 tracks and five and a half hours long.

Its cast list is a veritable lexicon of hip American alt-rock artists, from Anohni to the War on Drugs via Bonny “Prince” Billy, Bill Callahan, Fucked Up and Phosphorescent. Their ranks are bolstered by a sprinkling of contributions from the worlds of country music, retro soul, and the artier end of electronica, including that of Tim Hecker, the one artist who appears to have shown up with mischievous intent. “Ideologically opposed” to Grateful Dead, his contribution is a burst of chaotic abstraction inspired by Grayfolded, John Oswald’s “plunderphonics” layering of multiple live versions of Dark Star, which Hecker clearly views as gleeful desecration rather than homage." - Guardian