Club d'Elf merchandise

Now I Understand

debut studio cd

Cover art by Doug Sirois

Club d'Elf's debut studio recording, Now I Understand, is finally available after 8 years in the making! This CD is actually just the tip of the iceberg, and represents "volume 1" of the studio sessions, with more to follow. This stunning audio kaleidoscope takes the listener through a strange and wondrous (and sometimes dark & scary!) journey through the many musical styles that Club d'Elf have ingested and digested, including jazz, hip-hop, electronica, rock, world trance, etc. Produced and arranged by bassist Mike Rivard (and mixes by Scotty Hard amongst others), it features the contributions of 25 musicians, including John Medeski, Billy Martin, DJ Logic, Brahim Fribgane, Mister Rourke, Mat Maneri, Reeves Gabrels, Dave Tronzo, Duke Levine, Alain Mallet, Gerry Leonard, DJ C, and many more, as well as an entrancing vocal turn on a 60's chestnut by Jenifer Jackson. The reviews have been flooding in, and here are a sampling:

"A suite with many colors and moods, grooves, and melodies changing at a moments notice... Something about the idea of so many minds and hearts involved here makes this one a winner...If techno has come full-circle, enveloping [its] creator even as it points to another world, this party of relative soloists and collaborators keeps me guessing and wanting to guess." -John Ephland, Relix

"Club D'Elf's debut studio CD is the sound of a Dali painting...beautiful, surrealistic...eclectic, funny, technically impressive and, well, just awesome." -Jon Nolan, The Wire, New Hampshire

"[A] spontaneous groove-laden trance music experiment." - Dave Medeloni, Berkshire Eagle (Massachusetts)

"The brainchild of Boston bassist Mike Rivard, Club d'Elf is a genre- shattering collective that merges jazz, hip-hop, electronic music, worldbeat and more...Now I Understand is both instrumentally compelling and utterly uncategorizable. The future starts here." - Michael Roberts, Westword, Denver

"This music takes its time, and only repeated exposure to its delights reveals the depth of its identity. There is an overriding sense of construction behind the entire programme of Now I Understand, [yet] this is music whose democracy is as profound as that of any piece of free improvisation." - Nic Jones, AllAboutJazz.com

"Put it on and go for a ride." - Miles Jordan, The Chico News & Review

"It took eight years...but Boston improvisational collective Club d'Elf has finally captured this city. Led by bassist Mike Rivard, Club d'Elf's first studio album, Now I Understand, translates the feel of a cross-city commute into music: layers of sounds from hip- hop to trance and a half-dozen world-music genres create moments of beauty..." - Jed Gottlieb, Boston Herald

"If you want to hear a band who does it right, may I suggest Club D'Elf, whose Now I Understand (Accurate/Hi-N-Dry) is an album where you do not know what's coming next, even after three or four listens. [With] incredible down-tempo funk jams, tranquil jazz, African percussion [which will] take you to the motherland, these guys refuse to stay in one place at any given time and it's a joy to hang on and see where they take you next. Even with all of the diversity of music and musicians, it's not scatterbrained or disorganized at all....It's about unity, it's about community spirit, it's about one world, one music. Club D'Elf must have discovered some good hash somewhere, because once they hit that high, they thrive on the buzz and allow themselves to weave through it. All on one puff. - John Book, musicforamerica.org

"Club d'Elf is a fusion workshop, somewhat in the style of later Miles Davis or the Mahavishnu Orchestra, drawing together a range of players in a variety of genres to plumb jazz, dub, electronica, rock, trance, and the music of the Middle and Far East, with a heavy emphasis on Moroccan styles. Its core is bassist and sintir player Mike Rivard, a Berklee alumnus who began hosting biweekly d'Elf sessions at the Lizard Lounge in 1998. Affectionately dubbed ''Micro,'' Rivard's a legend around these parts, having come up with the Either/Orchestra and played with, among many others, the Story, Morphine and Patty Larkin." - Chad Berndtson, The Quincy (MA) Patriot Ledger

"All-stars they are: Club d'Elf have to be one of the most fluent polyglot musical aggregations on the planet: straight-ahead and avant- garde jazz, Indian, African, Moroccan, blues, funk (always funk), pop." - Jon Garelick, Boston Phoenix

"Downtown jazz meets trance, Moroccan music, dub, electonica and jamband...the music's ambitious in its scope but navigated smoothly enough and with enough chops to cause musicians out there to take notes." -Tad Hendrickson, JazzWeek

"Club d'Elf's Mike Rivard can draw from an unbelievable talent pool [and] with the studio, Rivard can put together any band he wants, whether they could all be in the same room at the same time or not. Great performances litter Now I Understand, but John Medeski and Mat Maneri deserve special mention (just check the Mellotron/electric viola feature on "Bass Beat Box") for their near ubiquity on the album. Now I Understand isn't an improvement over the live d'Elf shows; it's a different side of the same organism. Consider it the polished gemstone to the uncut diamonds of the live releases. Excellent." - Sean Westergaard, All Music Guide

Tracks : Introduction/Bass Beatbox/Hungry Ghosts/Quilty/Vishnu Dub/A Toy For a Boy/Luminous Things/What Would Cthulhu Do?/Now I Understand/ And Shadow Saw The Gods/Wetbones(extended)/Vision of Kali/Just Kiddin

Perhapsody

Club d'Elf

Recorded Live 10.12.06 at the Lizard Lounge, Cambridge, MA.

John Medeski (keyboards), Dave Tronzo (slide & prepared guitars), Duke Levine (guitar & electric sitar), Mister Rourke (turntables), Mike Rivard (unsuspecting & prepared electric & acoustic basses, sintir, electronic tamboura), Erik Kerr (drums), w/ Tom Hall (tenor sax on Disc 1 #4,5,6 & Disc 2 #1-5, 7) & Tom Halter (trumpet on Disc 2 # 2).

Produced by Mike Rivard. Co-produced, recorded, mixed & edited by Dan Cardinal. Mastered (& additional editing) by Scott Craggs. Live sound by Matt Malikowski. Cover artwork (Pane) by Peter Barrett (www.barrettart.com). Photo by Jaci Downs.

Disc 1(63:50)

1. Intro/Bass Beatbox (9:19)
2. Sin Gas (2:41)
3. Perhapsody (5:55)
4. Life Of The Mind (6:52)
5. Amazigh Prelude (2:46)
6. Berber Song (10:56)
*Bonus Tracks*
7. Goblin Garden (7:24)
8. The Tingler (10:51)
9. Hungry Ghosts (7:04)


Disc 2 (77:41)

1. Cave Man (9:28)
2. That Is My Voice (12:18)
3. Salvia Pt.1 (13:05)
4. Salvia Pt.2 (8:35)
5. Jar Of Hair (10:43)
6. Softly (10:18)
7. Sand (13:12)


AllAboutJazz.com review

Jambase.com review

eMusic review

Beyond Race review

When Club d'Elf released its first studio CD of its nine years of existence, it was only fitting that the band should hold its official release party at the Lizard Lounge, where it had been playing most every other Thursday since '98. It also seemed appropriate for the band that night to consist of some of the incredible musicians who contributed to Now I Understand (Accurate).

For this special evening bassist/leader Mike Rivard gathered together a heavyweight ensemble of MMW keyboardist John Medeski, the dual guitars of Dave Tronzo and Duke Levine, Mister Rourke on turntables and samples, and original d'Elf drummer Erik Kerr. Joining this stellar cast (with Rivard on electric and acoustic basses and the Moroccan sintir) were horn players Tom Hall, Tom Halter and Sam Kininger. Fortunately the music that evening was recorded, captured in all of it's detail on multi-track. The result is the live CD that sounds like a studio CD, Perhapsody, the band's seventh release on LA based Kufala. The album captures the intense energy that d'Elf bring to their live shows, which have become the stuff of legend, featuring telepathic improvisations adorning relentless grooves, played by musicians at the top of their craft.

The band has developed a reputation for walking a tightrope and taking musical chances at every opportunity, achieving a balance between both form and chaos. On this October night at the Lizard d'Elf displayed this ability with a vengeance. Perhapsody begins with the opening track from Now I Understand, "Bass Beatbox", here deconstructed and sounding like a mix by Four Tet before exploding into a driving drum and bass groove by Kerr. Two group improvisations follow, "Sin Gas" and the title track, which sounds like a lost Soul Coughing song with Medeski channeling both Sun Ra and some lost pygmy tribe. Sinuous and funky, the tune segues (the band prefer to play continuously without breaks between songs, with one tune morphing into the next, like a DJ set) into "Life Of The Mind", in which the complex rhythmic structure (7/8, 4/4, 7/8, 4/4, 7/8, 7/8, 4/4, 4/4 for those into the math) is made to groove in the manner of Dave Holland's ensembles. One of the high points of the tune is Medeski's Wurlitzer solo, which builds and builds and builds until it seems it can't get any more intense, and then proceeds to go even higher.

The CD continues with one of the groups forays into Moroccan folk music, a version of a Berber song from the High Atlas mountains called simply "Berber Song". While staying true to its source, the music also takes forays into a musical terrain where The Headhunters meet The Allman Brothers, with smoldering solos by both Tronzo and Medeski (here on organ). "Goblin Garden", another group improvisation which sounds completely composed, follows with the band combining drum'n'bass with a dark prog-rock sound ala Goblin, Italian horror director Dario Argento's band, whom the band pay homage to. Continuing in the horror movie theme, "The Tingler" is next, named after a classic William Castle B-movie from the early 60s starring Vincent Price. A perennial fan favorite, it has both the band and audience getting on the good foot with a sweat-drenched P-Funk stomp, and showcases a rollicking call and response between Medeski & Tronzo, with Levine and Rourke shining in sections as well. The release also heralds a new innovation that Kufala has developed for the packaging: a CD baggie that is 98% transparent, non-toxic, chemical free, has no plastic, is biodegradable, and smokebable, made out of the same paper as clear rolling papers. Kufala has an exclusive on the technology, with the first truly non-plastic CD packaging model.

Album Art by Peter Barrett

Album Art by Peter Barrett

Album Art by Peter Barrett

Album Art by Peter Barrett

Album Art by Peter Barrett

Album Art by Peter Barrett