LUCID PHASE ANNOUNCES THE RELEASE OF THEIR REIMAGINED COVER OF THE GRATEFUL DEAD'S ALTHEA

 A Tropical Sonic Delight, Tipping their Hats to a Grateful Dead Classic

 

SoCal band, Lucid Phase, to release single record
available on all streaming platforms September 1st 

 
Lucid Phase, today, announced their upcoming cover of Grateful Dead's Althea. The band's reimagined tropical rendition of the song is set for release on Friday September 1^st, 2023 by the Los Angeles based band. The seven minute and seven second track explores a new version of the original while staying true to some of the key motifs of The Grateful Dead.
 
"I never knew a Dead cover was in our future."  explains lead singer, Garret Laver. 'Cyrus (lead guitar) played the main riff over and over again on a quiet New Year’s Day when the idea struck.' Laver continues, "Once hearing the native sounds that we create in Lucid Phase, combined with the legendary lyrics and instrumentation of Althea, there was an instant excitement to cover it."

Lucid Phase is comprised of members; Garret Laver, Cyrus Maleki, and Jacob Flack. Their sound blends roots, dub & blues, with influences across the globe featuring guitar, bass, keys, percussion, melodica, trombone, saxophone, violin, and at times personally recorded bits from exotic locations such as the jungles of Costa Rica.

Band member, Cyrus Maleki, explains "The Grateful Dead has always been a huge influence through my musical journey picking up certain Jerry (Garcia) techniques when playing the guitar. Though jam bands aren't our only influences, I think there is something there to riff on how deep a band like the Dead are willing to go exploring a sound where we deep dive ourselves into something like getting just the right 'wha' tone out of my guitar." He continues, "We've enjoyed a ton of shows together watching a lot of the Grateful Dead band reincarnations over the years from Furthur to Dead & Company and Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros, and so on. It's a great sound and even better community."

Garret explains more about the Althea cover, "With a slower tempo than the original song's recording, we aimed to achieve a transcendent musical journey that the Dead explored when they played it. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating it."

Band member, Jacob Flack, speaks to the recording studio sessions mentioning "We really wanted to capture the 1980 studio version of Althea by exploring Garret's vocals matching the original timing and cadences while brining original personality to the track. Cyrus integrated plenty of Jerry's signature guitar riffs blended with his own guitar style in his solos and layered a nice guitar skank track on top." Jacob explains further, "We brought in our friend and previous collaborator, Jordan 'Jordy' Starke to track drums for the song and then topped it all off with harmonies, reggae bubble, guitar skanks/slurs, and some signature percussion elements - One being the güiro which you can hear in the original song."

   (Jordan "Jordy" Starke - Drummer) 

CREDITS

Producers: Cyrus Maleki, Garret Laver, & Jacob Flack
Lead Vocal: Garret Laver
Guitar, Bass, Organ: Cyrus Maleki
Harmonies, Percussion: Jacob Flack
Drumkit: Jordan "Jordy" Starke
Recording Engineers: Cyrus Maleki & Jacob Flack
Mixing Engineer: Walter Ernest
Mastering Engineer: Will Quinnell at Sterling Sound (NYC)
Recorded at The Dub Room Recording Studio on LA’s famed Sunset Strip