CHIP KINMAN - The Great Confrontation 2LP

Debut solo album by roots rock guitarist, known for his work with his brother Tony Kinman in The Dils, Rank and File, Blackbird and Cowboy Nation.

"Chip murders a couple of standards in cold blood purely for his own amusement. Both are traditional and absolutely unrecognizable. ‘Round About Danny’ is his take on the Irish ballad ‘Danny Boy’, written in 1913 and recorded relentlessly through the years by everyone from Judy Garland to Conway Twitty. The other’s a gospel hymn, ‘Will The Circle Be Unbroken’, originally performed by The Carter Family in the 1920s.

“Imagine both songs sans vocals, filtered through a particle accelerator beam shot by a rogue robot from a 1950’s sci-fi B movie. Then pretend they got reinterpreted by a hippie in a ratty flea market cape who borrowed a Moog synthesizer so he could emulate Rick Wakeman from the prog rock band Yes. The hippie not only had no working knowledge of playing a synthesizer, he was tripping his brains out on Owsley’s premium LSD.

“This album is all a huge departure from anything he’s ever done—but for Chip, that’s normal. I’m sure of this because I’ve known him since 1977, witnessing all his musical mutations and in many cases, the sources that inspired him to prolifically create original, cohesive and boundary-pushing sounds. As the old saying goes, what he’s done consistently is often imitated but never replicated.” —Pleasant Gehman