Club d'Elf - Live At Club Helsinki (feat. John Medeski) (2017)

Club d'Elf are a Boston-based collective centered around electric bassist and guitarist Mike Rivard and a core of main conspirators. After years as one of Boston's most in-demand bass players (the Story, Morphine, Either/Orchestra), Rivard has made many musical contacts, and uses them to call in an extremely wide variety of guest musicians/club members. The band's self-described concept is "live dub-trance-groove excursions, incorporating electronica, hip-hop, funk, and free jazz as well as Moroccan and West African trance traditions." The bottom line is the groove, but there's always far more going on than your basic jam band. Core members Jerry Leake and Brahim Fribgane add world music colorings, and guests range from Moroccan Gnawa musicians to avant guitarist Reeves Gabrels to country picker Duke Levine and beyond (John Medeski, Mat Maneri, Joe Maneri). After a two-year residency at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Club d'Elf released As Above: Live at the Lizard Lounge, a double-disc collection culled from six shows in November of 2000. A series of seven double-disc sets of live material followed over the next several years before they released Now I Understand, their first studio offering, in 2006. Many years in the making, their second studio set, Electric Moroccoland/So Below, arrived in 2011. Live at Club Helsinki was recorded in 2012 but wasn't released until early 2017. ~ Sean Westergaard