Day of the Dead: Day of the Dead Sunshine (Vol. 3)

Rob Mitchum on August 9, 2016

At 59 tracks and nearly six hours, the voluminous Day of the Dead is a difficult project to wrap a single critical opinion around. But compilers Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National recognized that a true survey of the Dead needed to cover several dimensions, from their still-under-recognized songwriting prowess and deep roots-folk credentials to their improvisational journeys and experimental oddities. Better then to go track by track, examining how faces familiar and less so bring the catalog into the 2010s, with results as varied as, well, a typical Dead show.

Here’s a look at Volume Three (click here to read about Volume One and click here to read about Volume Two).

01. Here Comes Sunshine –Real Estate
Some of the most pleasant surprises come from the indie bands who don’t actually have to stretch their approach very far to interpret the Dead. Bassist Alex Bleeker is a central figure in bridging the indie-jam barrier with his own projects, but it’s still shocking how easily this cover settles into Real Estate’s natural habitat of gauzy sunset indie-pop.

02. Shakedown Street – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Then there’s Ruban Nielson of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, who filters “Shakedown Street” through his lo-fi Prince aesthetic with ease. Go figure that the “Disco Dead” trend capitulation would sound like their most current composition 40 years later…

03. Brown-Eyed Women – Hiss Golden Messenger
M.C. Taylor once called Europe ‘72 “the Holy Grail of music,” and his band “Brown-Eyed Women” is a reverent reenactment. Perhaps its most astute element is the gorgeous, understated way the organ and piano weave their way through the song, enriching without distracting.

04. Jack-A-Roe – This Is the Kit
It makes total sense to allow covers of covers on a Dead tribute, though “Jack-ARoe” might be the least essential inclusion in this set, given how close This Is the Kit’s version lies to other artists’. English folk musician Kate Stables turns in a fine, traditional take—but it could’ve gone on a Joan Baez tribute just as easily.

05. High Time – Daniel Rossen & Christopher Bear
The polar opposite of their other appearance on the elaborate “Terrapin Station” suite, Daniel Rossen and Christopher Bear’s “High Time” is a raw acoustic take, gradually built up with pedal steel, Pet Sounds piano and supple drumming, but at its most effective when it’s just Rossen and a hard-strummed guitar.

06. Dire Wolf – The Lone Bellow & Friends
Better than their “Me and My Uncle,” The Lone Bellow’s “Dire Wolf” is pleasing but predictable dive-bar country, with the trio trading vocals and yielding the floor to some excellent pedal steel.

07. Althea – Winston Marshall, Kodiak Blue & Shura
Another synth-pop provocation like “Stella Blue,” the most controversial move this “Althea” makes is to completely scrap the central riff in favor of a synthy vibes melody that Brent Mydland would’ve adored. Winston Marshall, one of Mumford’s sons, works with British singer Shura and producer Kodiak Blue to wrap the song in an unlikely neon sheen.

08. Clementine Jam – Orchestra Baobab
“Clementine,” which only survives as an instrumental fragment and loose structure for 1968 jams, is the first of a handful of super obscurities tucked into the homestretch of Day of the Dead. Its simple two chords make an even more appropriate
substrate for Orchestra Baobab’s improvisation, since, unlike “Franklin’s,” there’s not much to leave out.

09. China Cat Sunflower> I Know You Rider – Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Stephen Malkmus winked at Dead fans with a lyrical name-drop and hefty “St. Stephen” tease on his most recent album with The Jicks, but this “China> Rider” dives into the deep end. And he nails it—no one else on the compilation
comes closer to the delirious mix of sloppiness and inspiration of the Dead at their best than this joyous 11-minutes-plus version. Coming from one of the biggest luminaries of indie rock (as the former leader of Pavement), it’s powerful evidence that the indie-jam divide was only surface-deep this whole time.

10. Easy Wind – Bill Callahan
Pigpen’s boozy and bluesy sexuality might be the most difficult Dead phase for modern indie to grapple with, but Bill Callahan (best known for his work as Smog) gives him a worthy cameo here. Callahan slows it down and strips out the blues-hammering, and his conversational tone makes “ballin’ that jack” sound about 90 percent less lascivious. Instead, he brings out the song’s ominous undercurrents of the price one pays for hard labor and hard drinking.

11. Wharf Rat – Ira Kaplan & Friends
There’s no denying that the Dead played molasses-slow for much of their later career, a turn off to many. But Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan finds the beauty in that crawl, setting a glacial pace for “Wharf Rat” that leaves space for an array of guitars to swirl through the song like August West’s ghosts.

12. Estimated Prophet – The Rileys
There are several points of contact between the Dead and minimalist composer giants Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass, but seeing Riley (and his son Gyan) on a tribute record still warrants a double take. As you might guess, it’s not your typical “Estimated,” with the Mu-Tron guitars surgically extracted and joined by chanting, melodica solos and banged pianos.

13. Drums> Space – Man Forever, So Percussion & Oneida
A compilation this thorough has to include a “Drums> Space,” and Man Forever and Oneida are the perfect current acts to pull it off. If anything it’s too short—at under five minutes, it doesn’t quite capture the love/hate long-form exploration that was mandatory at later Dead shows—and not aggressive enough to make the valid case for the Dead as the most successful noise act in music history.

14. Cream Puff War – Fucked Up
Canadian hardcore band Fucked Up wins the award for Least Likely Participant onDay of the Dead, but amusingly, their version of the embryonic Dead single “Cream Puff War” is more than twice as long as the original. Singer Damian Abraham’s phlegmy yell will frighten off many, but the music is some of the most psychedelic of the entire comp-waves of chugging guitars and cyclical bass producing a hypnotic effect.

15. Dark Star – The Flaming Lips
If you’re going to include two versions of a song, it might as well be “Dark Star,” which took so many different forms in its history. The Flaming Lips’ version is far less traditional, almost krautrock in its menacing rhythmic precision and deep supply of audio tricks. It’s not just a worthy inclusion; it might be one of the best things the Lips have done in quite a while.

16. What’s Become of the Baby – stargaze
Probably the weirdest track to make a studio Dead release, but if it’s good enough to appear at Fare Thee Well, then why not here? This German contemporary classical collective succeeds in making the song even more disquieting, low frequencies droning while woodwinds follow the vocal line and do effective impressions of guitar feedback.

17. King Solomon’s Marbles – Vijay Iyer
Proper jazz musician Vijay Iyer sets a high degree of difficulty for himself with this instrumental prog fractal from Blues for Allah. But resetting “King Solomon’s Marbles” as a solo piano piece eases the information overload, with Jerry’s frantic, cascading notes from the original smoothing out into mesmerizing harmonics.

18. Rosemary – Mina Tindle & Friends
Apart from the singing-through-a-fan vocal effect, the original “Rosemary” is a straightforward folk song, which is how French folk singer Mina Tindle treats it. That makes it a pleasant comedown from the last several tracks of high weirdness, but little more.

19. And We Bid You Goodnight – Sam Amidon
The traditional benediction loses a little something when performed solo and practiced, instead of in broken harmonies by an exhausted band. But it’s the right way to end such a marathon of a tribute album…

20. I Know You Rider (Live) – The National with Bob Weir
…which is why this tape filler seems a bit wrong, even if it nicely brings the project full circle from the Weir & National collaboration that planted its seeds. But hearing Weir and Berninger trade verses is the kind of heartwarming, multi-generational summit that the collection mostly avoids, and while it’s a little too mannered after the Malkmus version, it picks up with a late trumpet solo.

Artist: Day of the Dead
Album: Day of the Dead Sunshine (Vol. 3)