Club d'Elf

Club d'Elf is more than a band, it's a universe. Circling about bassist/composer Mike Rivard (Morphine/Either-Orchestra/Guster), D'Elf is a constellation of top musicians from the jazz, DJ, rock & world music scenes of Boston & NYC who get in the groove and proceed to blow it up. Every show features a new combination of players, sounds and ideas, so that fans come back over and over to hear their favorite D'Elf tunes constantly transformed. With Rivard and drummer Dean Johnston at the core, guitars, turntables, Fender Rhodes, laptops, horns, tablas and a myriad of exotic instruments flow in and out of the mix, along with guests such as John Medeski & Billy Martin, DJ Logic, Marc Ribot, Skerik, and Marco Benevento. Mind-expanding and booty-shaking at the same time, D'Elf's ever-changing music invites repeated listening.
Formed in 1998 by Rivard with the encouragement of Morphine's Mark Sandman, the music draws from a startlingly wide spectrum of styles, including jazz, hip hop, psychedelia, electronica, avant garde and dub. Under the tutelage of member Brahim Fribgane, from Casablanca, the band has made Moroccan trance influences an essential part of the mix. Audiences of all persuasions are drawn to Fribgane's mesmerizing oud stylings and Rivard's command of the Moroccan sintir, a 3 string bass lute used by the Gnawa, a mystical Sufi brotherhood of trance-healers. Derived from ancient sources, trance forms the central core of the Club d'Elf aesthetic, unifying the various genres the band has absorbed.
From Mount Fuji, Japan to the Festival Du Monde Arabe de Montreal, the intoxicating power of the D'Elf groove draws listeners in and melts away boundaries, finding rave kids dancing alongside Arabic audiences in traditional garb. The band's bi-weekly residency at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA is the stuff of legend and provided a laboratory for its improvisational style to emerge and develop. Its latest studio CD, Electric Moroccoland/So Below, drew glowing reviews from PRI's The World, Voice Of America, and Afropop Worldwide for its bold synthesis of Moroccan traditional music and electronic, dubbed-out funk, rising to #1 on the Relix chart. From ancient African talking drums to modern turntables, it represents the fullest manifestation of the band's One World/One Music aesthetic, including Gnawa legend Hassan Hakmoun singing Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love" in Moroccan Arabic.
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Discography:
As Above: Live at the Lizard Lounge (2000) • Vassar Chapel (2001) • Athens, GA (2002)• NYC 420(2003) • Live: Tonic, NYC (2004) • Gravity All Nonsense Now (2005) • 100 Years of Flight (2005) • Now I Understand (2006) •
Perhapsody (2007) • Electric Moroccoland/So Below (2011)
Best Jazz Act, Boston Music Awards, 2007 • Best Jazz Act, Best of Boston, Boston Magazine, 2004 • Phoenix Editors and Readers Poll, 2001 • Best Jam Band, Phoenix Editors and Readers Poll, 2001 • Best DJ/Electronica Act, FNX Best Music Poll, 2001 • Best Cutting Edge Band, Best of Boston, Boston Magazine, 1998