‘Interludes for the Dead’
Rhino Records Vinyl Reissue

On October 21, Rhino will release two limited-edition vinyl versions of Circles Around The Sun’s debut, Interludes for the Dead.

INTERLUDES FOR THE DEAD began when Neal Casal enlisted Adam MacDougall, Dan Horne, and Mark Levy to record soundscapes and grooves inspired by the Grateful Dead for the band’s 2015 Fare Thee Well shows, at Justin Kreutzmann’s request.

All of the music was written collectively during a marathon two-day recording session, with nothing prepared beforehand or added afterward. When the music was revealed during the set breaks of Fare Thee Well, it was clear the one-off project had a future of its own. The quartet agreed to continue together as Circles Around The Sun (CATS), debuting their live performance at LOCKN’ in 2016.

The original double-LP for INTERLUDES FOR THE DEAD will be reissued in a limited run of 5,000 copies on 140-gram Pacific-blue vinyl for $39.98. The color is a tribute to Neal, who loved the ocean and took the photo of the Pacific Ocean featured inside the album’s gatefold sleeve. 

The second release is INTERLUDES FOR THE DEAD: EXPANDED EDITION. This 4-LP set includes, for the first time on vinyl, the complete track listing featured on the 2015 double-album plus Neal’s versions of The Grateful Dead’s “Ship Of Fools” and “Mountains Of The Moon” with instrumental additions by CATS. The new expanded edition will be limited to 3,000 copies pressed on 180-gram vinyl for $99.98. The final side of the set includes a special etching of Neal.

Circles Around The Sun are currently on tour with guitarist John Lee Shannon.
Find their tour dates here.

Download & Stream

Previously released digital in 2015

This interview with Neal about the origin of Circles Around The Sun was published on Live For Live Music on November 30, 2015.

L4LM: How did you come up with the name, Circles Around the Sun…?

NC: The name of the project? We didn’t have a name for it. One thing that’s important to know is that it wasn’t created originally as a record. We weren’t thinking in terms of making an album. We were only thinking of the music to be played on the screen at the shows. This was never intended for release. If you were recording, intending it to be released, you would never come up with a 26 minute song.  Nobody would do that because when you’re thinking about making records, you have to keep certain song lengths in mind. There’s constraints.

We had absolutely no constraints and that’s what makes this thing so cool. It’s what makes it free sounding. It’s so liberated from the normal boundaries of record making. Once the idea came up to turn it into a record, because so many people liked it, I had to come up with a name for the project. I had a lot of trouble doing that. When you’re being spontaneous, it’s easy. When you have to think about something, and actually put your attention on it, you can’t come up with anything.

I am somewhat friends with Annabelle, Jerry [Garcia’s] daughter, through the Fare Thee Well shows, and a couple of other things. I’ve become friendly with her, and expressed to her my difficulty in coming up with the name, and asked if she’d help. She was totally into that idea. She came up with tons of names, a lot of ideas. My favorite of those was Circles Around the Sun. There’s a line, “throw my arms around you like a circle around the sun”, that is a common line in a lot of old folk songs. It’s also a line in the song, “I Know You Rider”, which is a cover. It’s a folk song that the Grateful Dead have played since their earliest days. Phil [Lesh] plays it, I’ve played it.

The Grateful Dead never sang the verse that contains the line, “circle around the sun.” They left that verse out. A lot of old folk songs are really long. People would arrange them differently. Some leave certain lyrics or versus out of their arrangement. It’s a common thing in folk arranging. I thought it was really cool to take on the name from a Grateful Dead song, but it’s a verse that they never sang. Sort of the missing verse or the missing lyric. It made sense to name it Circles Around the Sun, as a continuation of The Grateful Dead story and our little part in that, respectfully. Annabelle Garcia gave us our name. That was a nice feeling to have someone directly connected to the legacy help us with that. 

L4LM: In closing, is there anything else you would like to say out there to all of your fans?

NC: The only thing important to me right now is, with the Circles Around the Sun release, I would like to see the highest number of people get the best quality music that’s available. Meaning, thousands of people already have that music because it was ripped off of YouTube around the time of the Fare Thee Well shows. It got passed around, and people have it, so they’ve already been listening to this for months. It’s a much lower quality, shitty digital rip off of YouTube, and that bothered me a lot.

I’m trying to get people to buy this record, not because I want their money, but rather, I want them to have the best quality version of this music. I’m just encouraging people that like it, to buy it, so the best version of this music makes it’s way into the world. I’m hoping the low quality YouTube version recedes into the background, eventually disappears, and is replaced by the best quality version. Everyone who had it on YouTube, it wasn’t mixed or mastered properly. We’ve gone back and mixed and mastered it properly, the way a record is supposed to be done. It’s up to our standards and we’re ready to present it to fans.

Read the full interview here.