Club d'Elf "Now I Understand" (Accurate)
By Ben Taylor
Friday. Sep 15, 1:39 PM
Weird wild stuff from the outer fringes of the groove.

With a multi-faceted, genre-spanning album like this, it’s hard to know where even to begin describing it. For starters, Club d’Elf is the Boston-based collective lead by bassist Mike Rivard aka Micro Vard. He’s done time with all kinds of folks ranging from The Either/Orchestra (big band avant-jazz), The Story (folk), Paula Cole (singer/songwriter chick rock), Natraj (raga jazz), and the inimitable Morphine. The guy’s been around a few different blocks more than a few times, and for the last eight years he’s been convening a rotating cast of characters in a dark subterranean room in Cambridge for bi-monthly throwdowns, heavy on the groove and improvisation.

Fitting for such a mercurial concert attraction, all of their releases up until now have been live recordings, capturing a particular line-up on a particular night when the stars and planets aligned. Rivard has some heavy-hitter friends, with names like John Medeski, Marc Ribot, and Reeves Gabrels scattered about, adding to the sonic madness and attracting the curious hippies and college students. It’s been a long arduous process, but he’s finally completed a studio album after eight years of recording and mixing… and the results are well worth the wait.

While you can’t judge a book by its cover, it’s fairly telling to take a glance at the eye-popping cover art Doug Sirois concocted as an apt visual representation of the music. There’s some “take me to your dealer” aliens/visitors scratching on a turntable, a third-eye-open octopus strumming an oud, space mutants, and all sorts of hallucinatory eyeballs and discombobulated body parts and UFOs and pyramids. It’s a cosmic collage that gives you a pretty good whiff of what sort of craziness lies inside.

It’s not hard to pick out some of the sonic touchstones these guys are working with: electric Miles Davis, Bill Laswell’s futuristic ethno-dub, David Lynch fever dream soundtracks, DJ Shadow’s cinematic beatscapes, downtown avant-jazz, high-speed drum ‘n’ bass, the list goes on and on. In the hands of mere amateurs and hack sample jockeys, this could be a bewildering mess. Actually, in the hands of these seasoned professionals, it’s still pretty bewildering and not exactly neat and tidy, but they make it work by sheer power of the groove and some judicious editing (they finally have the use of studio cut & pasting, but even live, Rivard runs the show, using hand signals to guide everyone in and out of the flow).

The open-ended grooves allow all the jazz, funk, hip-hop, and trance elements to run together pretty smoothly, which should appeal to open-minded jamb and fans, especially with John Medeski’s mind-boggling organ and electric piano work throughout. But for the more conventional minded, there’s a gorgeous little torch song, “A Toy For a Boy,” sung by Jennifer Jackson in the middle of all this beat-heavy skronk. Even the lighthearted closer “Just Kiddin,” featuring drummer Erik Kerr’s young daughters laughing and goofing off over some tasty reggae breaks, which could easily be a cast-off joke in lesser hands, makes a valuable melodic contribution to a largely rhythm-centric album.

Rivard lays it down with his dubby electric bass lines, and really pushes the art of the groove forward with his inventive upright playing. It helps that he’s supported by an amazing cast of musicians like human breakbeat machine Kerr, gonzo guitarists Dave Tronzo and Duke Levine, turntablist Mister Rourke, and electric violin terror Mat Maneri. Special bonus points go to Brahim Frigbane for his otherworldly contributions on oud (a Middle Eastern lute) and galloping percussion.

This definitely isn’t easy listening. In fact, some might even consider it queasy listening. But deep within these layers of sound and rhythm lies a sublime essence of spiritual bliss that comes out with repeated listenings. Just try not to operate heavy machinery while you’re looking for it.
www.clubdelf.com
www.accuraterecords.com

Ben Taylor

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