Club d'Elf featuring Mat Maneri /Brahim Fribgane /Mike Rivard /Dean Johnston, 21+ Show December 27, 2008

"...combin(ing) the roaring avant-funk of electric-era Miles with the legato drift of the Grateful Dead. Manic Berber bop, hypnotic Moroccan gnawa and blissful electronica are usually present in the mix as well... heady music that doesn't neglect the tail." -TimeOutNewYork

(Jamaica Plain) Boston-based purveyors of Moroccan-soaked dub-jazz and recipient of the Boston Music Award in 2007 for Best Jazz Band, Club d'Elf will play Crash Mansion on Saturday Dec 27 with special guests electric violist Mat Maneri (Paul Motian/Cecil Taylor/Matthew Shipp) & Moroccan oud & percussion master Brahim Fribgane (Hassan Hakmoun/DJ Logic/Leni Stern). The group formed in 1997, spearheaded and fronted by bassist/composer Mike Rivard, a busy session player who has recorded & performed with Morphine, Jon Brion, Aimee Mann, G. Love & John Scofield, amongst others. Originally formed around a core rhythm section with the addition of different special guests for each show, the idea was to remix Rivard's groove-based compositions differently for each performance. Guests over the years have included Morphine's Mark Sandman, John Medeski & Billy Martin (MMW), DJ Logic, Hassan Hakmoun, Marc Ribot, Skerik, and Marco Benevento (Benevento / Russo Duo), with Jambands.com describing the situation thusly: "Club d'Elf consists of Mike Rivard and any cohorts who decide to embark with him into perilous sonic chimeras."

The music draws from a startlingly wide spectrum of styles, including jazz, hip hop, electronica, prog rock and dub, with the band exploring mash ups of these diverse musical universes before the term was even in use. Over the past few years the band has been absorbing Moroccan trance influences and frequently adding this element to the live mix, showcasing Rivard's commanding playing of the Moroccan sintir (a 3 string bass lute used by the Gnawa people of Morocco, a mystical Sufi brotherhood descended from sub-Saharan slaves brought to Morocco over 500 years ago.

Special guests Maneri & Fribgane are no strangers to the band, having both appeared on numerous releases by the group including Club d'Elf's debut CD As Above: Live At The Lizard Lounge (2000 Grapeshot Media), Athens, GA 3/28/02 (2004 Kufala Recordings), and 2006's Now I Understand (Accurate), which was the band's first studio release. Both are featured on the follow-up to Now I Understand, which comprises not one, but TWO new studio releases slated for early 2009, representing two very different sides to the band's sound: post-Radiohead electronica & acoustic Moroccan folk music.

Praise for Club d’Elf:

"A suite with many colors and moods, grooves, and melodies changing at a moments notice...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." - Relix Magazine



"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



"...something akin to skunky Jack Johnson Miles Davis flavored with the chop-and-cut of modern electric instrumentals. Think the Talking Heads' Remain In Light stripped of the vocals and peppered with samples from David Byrne's Luaka Bop label." - Crazewire



"...sounds like lost Syd Barrett...an interstellar dub cryptogram that builds outward in layers..an electronic thrust into the blackest heart of modern darkness." -Chris M. Slawecki, AllAboutJazz