Club d'Elf functions as a Boston-rooted ensemble built around electric bassist and guitarist Mike Rivard together with a tight circle of recurring collaborators. Following an extended stretch as one of the city’s busiest session bassists (the Story, Morphine, Either/Orchestra), Rivard accumulated an extensive network of players and routinely draws on those connections to assemble an ever-shifting roster of guest musicians. The group characterizes its own approach as “live dub-trance-groove excursions, incorporating electronica, hip-hop, funk, and free jazz as well as Moroccan and West African trance traditions.” While the central priority remains the groove, the music consistently exceeds the conventions of a standard jam-band format. Jerry Leake and Brahim Fribgane supply additional world-music textures within the core lineup, while visiting artists span Moroccan Gnawa practitioners, avant guitarist Reeves Gabrels, country picker Duke Levine, and further contributors including John Medeski, Mat Maneri, and Joe Maneri. Following a two-year residency at Cambridge, Massachusetts’s Lizard Lounge, the collective issued the double-disc set As Above: Live at the Lizard Lounge, assembled from six November 2000 performances. Over the ensuing years the band produced seven additional double-disc live collections before unveiling its debut studio album, Now I Understand, in 2006. After an extended period of development, the second studio effort, Electric Moroccoland/So Below, appeared in 2011. Live at Club Helsinki was captured in 2012 yet surfaced only in early 2017.
