Eight years on the assembly line and Club d’Elf finally grant us what we’ve been waiting for, a studio release!!!! With a mixture of DJs, Jazz, Rock, Soul and solid groove artists, Now I Understand is more of an announcement now than it ever was. Is this Free Jazz? Not sure, but Mike Rivard does his best to let the improvisation lead us to believe so. Some tracks were performed as you hear them and others were pieced together later.
Even the cover art on this album snatches my attention! Just holding onto it and looking at all the details made me think instantly, this CD kicks (it’s a good thing), and I haven’t even played it yet! The Boston based core group is made up of 3 super musicians; Mike Rivard, Erik Kerr and Brahim Fribgane. The counter musicians list is LONG but worth the mention, as most of these should be recognizable to most audiophiles; John Medeski, Reeves Gabrels, Joe Maneri, David FUZE Fiuczynski, Marc Ribot, Sam Kininger (Soulive) , Jennifer Hartswick, Josh Roseman, Aron Magner, Lamine Toure, Hassan Hakmoun, Said Hakmoun, Mohamed Tbizi, Hassan Bouhmid, Abdlatif Benani, Lotfi Tiken, Boujemaa Razgui, Stan Strickland, DJ Logic, Mark Sandman, Billy Conway, Dana Colley, Roger Miller and Binary System, Spooky Ghost, Danny Blume (Liminal Lounge) , Bob Moses, Kenwood Dennard, Andrew Barr (the Slip) , Brad Barr (the Slip) , Jamey Haddad, Dr. Didg (Graham Wiggins), Jay Bellerose, Shuman, Steven Bernstein.
Tracklist: Bass Beat Box, Hungry Ghosts, Quilty, Vishnu Dub, Toy for a Boy, Luminous Things, What Would Cthulhu Do?, Now I Understand, And Shadow Saw the Gods, Wet Bones (extended), Vision of Kali, and Just Kiddin.
– Paul Pelon IV
