In 2011, after more than 20 years of intense gigging and recording, Chris Robinson set out to fashion something new, a breathing kaleidoscopic thing stuffed with chooglin’ soul, bedrock boogie and shuffling wisdom.
This new fashioned "thing" eventually evolved into the Chris Robinson Brotherhood. What began as an experiment without expectations turned into a 118-show journey for Robinson (lead vocals, guitar), Neal Casal (guitar, vocals), Adam MacDougall (keys, vocals), George Sluppick (drums) and Mark Dutton (bass, vocals). To the surprise of the aformentioned veterans of live music an unshakeable solidity and exuberant reach poured out of them.
For a full year, the CRB road tested their ideas and by the time of their sold-out four-night run at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall in December 2011, the Brotherhood was fully switched-on.
The band entered Sunset Sound in Los Angeles in January 2012, and came out the other side of a six-day session with 27 different songs with 97 takes, most of it captured straight off-the-floor with only minor
enhancements after the fact. Roberston remembers a conversation with album producer Thom Monahan (Vetiver, Devendra Banhart, Papercuts);
"We talked about it at a show in Los Angeles, 'This is it (gesturing at stage gear). We're not bringing anything else with us into the studio. This is what brought us here this year, so this is exactly what this is
gonna be. We didn't even change strings from the last Cali run ."
Reviews for "Big Moon Ritual " have not been overly great, with reviewers pointing out that the overly long jams on the album ( all songs over 7min) as being a bad thing and hence not injecting any impact to the listener overall. However, The Observers Ally Carnwath made the most succinct and even handed commentary with his statement "while one man's easeful rock odyssey is another's slow descent into torpor, it'd be hard to deny how expertly Robinson and his band negotiate the trip."
The Chris Robertson Bortherhood release their first studio album " Big Moon Ritual" on July 20th 2012. A second release and companion album "The Magic Door" is slated for a September 2012 release.
