Grateful Dead: Aoxomoxoa [RHINO]

Why you'll love it

This 180g pressing features the 50th anniversary remastered audio of the band's own definitive 1971 mix. It's the album that introduced "St. Stephen," "China Cat Sunflower" and "Dupree's Diamond Blues."

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Remastered
• Definitive 1971 band mix
• Pressed in the USA
• Stereo mix

About the album

Aoxomoxoa is a palindrome that sounds like a spell, which is fitting for the record where Jerry Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter really became a songwriting team. It's the Dead's third album, a psychedelic swirl of folk, blues and studio experiments, and many of its songs went on to become long-running fixtures of their live shows.

"St. Stephen" opens with a rush of chiming guitars and choir-like harmonies, "China Cat Sunflower" twists and sparkles, and "Dupree's Diamond Blues" is an old-timey murder ballad told with a wink. "Rosemary" and "Mountains Of The Moon" are delicate and dreamlike, "Doin' That Rag" shuffles, and "Cosmic Charlie" closes on a lazy, lovable groove, with Phil Lesh co-writing along the way.

The band went back in 1971 and remixed the whole thing to their liking, and that mix is the one pressed here. Few groups have been so committed to getting it right the second time, though the Dead did have rather a lot of practice at second sets.

Also at Kops: more Grateful Dead on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Warner Bros. / Rhino (cat# R1 591257), a reissue of the 1969 album.