Club d'Elf

A floating ensemble in every best sense of the word, Club d'Elf is tethered to bassist Mike Rivard and the more or less house rhythm section from Rivard's extended residency at the Lizard Lounge, a progressive if not experimental music club in Boston. After releasing numerous live albums—the best laboratory for their mainly improvised, genre-munching music—they released their first studio album, Now I Understand (Accurate), in late 2006. What did they do at their studio album release party? Why, perform and record it for another live album—Perhapsody, a double-CD set that overflows with jam. Most tunes led by Tom Hall's tenor saxophone suggest jazz fusion hijacked into more adventurous (and sometimes dangerous) territory. Hall's sax shapes the structure and leads the instrumentation of "Life of the Mind," for example, even though the music those instruments are actually playing sounds more attuned to experimental hip-hop and funk. He later leads the almost jolly yet crumpled bop melody of Steve Bernstein's "Cave Man," kicked by Erik Kerr's whipcrack snare drum down the echoing corridor of Rivard's bass heartbeat, which shifts into a thick jungle vamp for a middle section that seems designed to let the music breathe, culminating in a Rivard / Kerr dialogue/diatribe that bombdrops atomic funk. Like quicksilver, the rest of this moves even more all over the place than that. Several longer tunes (such as "Sin Gas" and the title track) explore collective electric rock/jazz improvisations. "Berber Song" may be based on a form of traditional Moroccan folk music but its frantic lead guitar, clattering backdrop and rhythmic churn exemplify the busy-ness of modern American life. Similarly, "Jar of Hair" rocks hard through music that doesn't even come close to rock & roll, as Rivard's bass seems to play "Tag—you're it!" with Kerr's drum patterns under the cover of an electric guitar psychedelic freak-out. I've been listening to Perhapsody for several consecutive weeks and still haven't figured out how to explain or describe this music. Which is probably the most honest and accurate Club d'Elf review of all. - Chris M. Slawecki - AllAboutJazz.com

More than just a band, Club d'Elf is a rolling consortium of killer players (featuring John Medeski, Billy Martin, Dave Tronzo, Reeves Gabrels, and many more) organized and produced by acoustic/electric bassist Mike Rivard. Their tasty take on trip-hop jazz-rock-funk takes the John Scofield Uberjam and late Medeski Martin & Wood concepts to the next level of experimentation, with samples, unusual instruments, turntable scratching, curious noises and unique timbres scattered across the stereo spectrum, darting in and out of a late- night out-of-control party-jam-band atmosphere. The hat Rivard wears on this project is much more producer than bassist, but the tones and grooves he puts down in the middle of this long strange trip are greasy enough to keep the party going and then some (check out "Vishnu Dub" for a deep low-end carve). Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

- Bryan Beller - Bass Player Magazine

It's generally accepted that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but when a CD comes wrapped in smokable cellophane, the cover might be a good place to start. Inside, the Boston-based collective's seventh release, Perhapsody Live 10.12.06, captures the live energy that they've brought to the stage of the Lizard Lounge almost every other week since their inception in '98. The blend of jazz, prog-rock, drum 'n' bass and Moroccan folk makes one wish that catchall labels like "acid-jazz" hadn't been extinguished decades ago. In this particular instance, the packaging might just be a proper indication of what's to come.

Over two discs worth of aqueous, inspired grooves, the latest Club d'Elf lineup finds keyboardist John Medeski (MMW), guitarists Dave Tronzo (Sex Mob) and Duke Levine (Shawn Colvin), turntablist Mister Rourke and horn players Tom Hall and Tom Halter (Either/Orchestra) wound around the core rhythm section of drummer Erik Kerr and bassist- sintir player Mike Rivard. Despite its collaborative scaffolding, Club d'Elf orbits this rhythmic nucleus like a seasoned, monogamous outfit. Exceedingly bass-centric, it is Rivard who anchors the proceedings and directs each permutation.

The result is deep, organic electronica, more primal-trance than '90s rave with a trip-hop beat stemming from sax and turntables that can skip at a moment's notice into eerie gamelan meditations before crescendoing into a drum 'n' bass blow-out, complete with 8-bit bleeps and hovering Wurlitzer. Tracks like "Life of the Mind" utilize complex rhythmic figures as platforms for ecstatic improvisation, especially from Medeski, whose one-two punch of obtuse atmospherics and angular melodic lines are at their most characteristic. While "Berber Song" nods to Rivard's roots in Moroccan folk music, the proggy "Goblin Garden" pays homage to Italian horror director Dario Argento.

Though the exclusive product of live improvisation, a studio quality often emerges, especially from Mister Rourke's sample board. Phasing drum samples compliment Kerr's live beats, and slices of sci-fi dialogue dart in-and-out of dark organ passages. Particularly apropos are the fragments of psychedelic guru Terence McKenna 's testimony on what he calls "elf music," buried in the two-part "Salvia" sequence.

At once architectural and fluid, Perhapsody was no doubt properly handled before the shrink-wrap went on. Lucky for us, that responsibility carries over to when the wrapper comes off.

- Josh Potter - Jambase 8/13/07

Club d’Elf is not exactly your average band. First off, there’s only one permanent member of the ever-changing club: bassist and bandleader Mike Rivard. Second, d’Elf dropped their first studio album, last year’s Now I Understand, after eight years in existence; previously, they had released seven two-disc live albums. And now, less than a year since the release of Understand, we have Perhapsody, another two-disc live album, this time documenting their CD release party for Now I Understand. In the case of almost any other band, Perhapsody would be redundant. But this is another reason that d’Elf is not your average band. Perhapsody is a must-have, a killer album that is as different as can be from their excellent studio record. Plus, you’ll flip when you find out who’s chillin’ in the clubhouse this time around: keyboardist John Medeski and slide guitar monster Dave Tronzo joined Rivard that night for two sets of explosive music. Under the bassist’s careful supervision, they were free to roam the countryside of whatever distant land sounds they pleased, like a cross between James Brown and Medeski, Martin and Wood, with not-so-subtle dashes of dub, hip-hop and world music thrown in. Highlights include “Berber Song,” Rivard’s “The Tingler” and Steven Bernstein’s anthemic “Caveman.” An album worth checking out for its eclectic variety and unpredictability.

-Brad Farberman - Beyond Race (11.18.07)

An unstoppable, far-out musical force captured live on two discs.

The last time we checked in with Boston’s Club d’Elf, they’d just released Now I Understand, their long in-the-works first studio album where they finally distilled the groove science they’d been perfecting in countless intimate club gigs. That excellent, if overly edited and tweaked, album was preceded by a half-dozen double-disc live albums, many recorded in their home base of the last decade, The Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA. It’s not surprising that they decided to document and unleash the proceedings of their record release show for Now I Understand, since they thrive on on-stage reinvention just like the great electric bands of one of their admitted heroes, Mile Davis. Releasing a live record so soon after a studio album, especially from a gig dominated by material from said studio album, is always the worst example of major label cash-in, but for a band as far-out and constantly re-inventive as Club d’Elf, it makes perfect sense. While it’s a jam-band cliché to say a band never plays the same set any given night, for Club d’Elf that’s really true, because the line-up so often changes from gig to gig, and bassist/leader Mike Rivard trusts his comrades to take the music in whatever direction it needs to go in order to make its way back to the ether from which they summoned it.

On this night in October 2006, they were firing on all cylinders with a crew who all appeared on Now I Understand (but given the slice-n- dice nature of modern digital editing, there’s no guarantee that any of them were necessarily in the studio at the same time). Launching the first set with the same “War of the Worlds”-esque stentorian radio announcement that kicks off the studio album, Rivard and monster drummer Eric Kerr coast in on the nimble groove of “Bass Beatbox.” DJ Mister Rourke adds some nice electronic flavors while Rivard does an understated dance around Kerr’s drum ‘n’ bass skittering. Things coast smoothly for a while until keyboardist John Medeski fires up some organ weirdness that splits the difference between jazz great Larry Young’s polytonal riffs and a funhouse/ roller rink meltdown. They don’t call this stuff “queasy listening” for nothing. Someone’s laying down a weird chirpy line that wouldn’t sound out of place on Herbie Hancock’s Sextant, but between two guitarists, the DJ, and Medeski, it’s anyone’s guess to what instrument is actually making what sound.

The most eye-opening moments here are the transitions between songs, easy enough to do with a mouse stroke in the studio, but harder to pull off live on the spot, especially with as little rehearsal as these guys probably get. While the band is free-ranging improv experiment, Rivard is always there dropping hand signals to cue players in and out, and he’s got such a rapport with Kerr that they pull this stuff off like they’d been planning it all along. Again, the comparisons with ‘70s electric Miles arise, but these guys also know when to tame things slightly and lay into some really nice spacious grooves, trimmed of any fat or noodling bullshit.

Medeski is definitely the biggest name here, and while his presence will hopefully attract attention to this great but still somewhat unheralded group, he’s definitely not the only heavy-hitter here. Duke Levine and Dave Tronzo’s dual-guitar attack leaves heads spinning with their casual virtuosity and restraint. Two lead guitars sparring with Medeski seems like a recipe for wanky disaster, but these guys never seem to step on any toes. Levine especially knows how to spice things up from the sidelines, providing gentle support with pedal steel-like harmonics and glisses.

Probably the main difference from the studio versions of this material is the absence of Brahim Frigbane, a charter member of the group who makes strong contributions on Middle Eastern lute and percussion, and provides the most exotic sounds to an already polyglot sonic stew. They stick a little closer to straight-ahead groove here (“straight-ahead” being a relative term: check out the molasses-thick “That is My Voice” sounding like The Meters jamming with R2D2 after downing a family-size bottle of Robitussin), with Medeski’s organ workouts leading the charge through some tough grooves and Kerr laying down a harder pocket than the lighter stylings of Billy Martin, Medeski’s regular sparring partner in Medeski Martin & Wood.

Plowing through dub, world beat, funk, jazz, and just pure sound (both acoustic and electronic), Club d’Elf are an unstoppable musical force, and Kufala does an excellent job of documenting the live experience (they’re doing good things with the packaging, too: Perhapsody is one of the first discs to come in their new bio- degradable non-plastic shrinkwrap). For people who can’t make it to The Lizard Lounge, this double-disc bonanza does a great job of making you feel like you’re in the middle of it all. Some might’ve thought that the studio excursions on Now I Understand were something that wasn’t physically possible to play, but these jams prove otherwise. It’s a must-have companion to Now I Understand and a fine purchase on its own. For those seeking new funky music that isn’t afraid to color outside the lines, this is a great place to start.

- Ben Taylor, - Transformonline

About eight years ago, composer/bassist Mike Rivard began leading a “floating residency” in Cambridge, Massachusetts, organized around the rhythm section, which pulsed behind a kaleidoscope of horn, keyboard, percussion and guitar players. After seven live releases, Rivard has finally shepherded his “ever-changing performance ensemble” into its first studio album.

No fewer than 25 musicians participate in the workshop, happily hammering around the core “Elves”: Rivard on basses and sintir, a three-stringed bass lute from Morocco; drummer Erik Kerr; turntablist Mister Rourke; and Brahim Fribgane on percussion, oud and dumbek.

Miles Davis most likely would have laughed his ass off, but in the best way, at Now I Understand as a bastard child of Bitches Brew. Bitches Brew experimented with essential elements of modern jazz, rock and funk, in new ways, for new purposes; Now I Understand does essentially the same thing—experiment and improvise—but instead uses progressive rock, hip-hop and indigenous music as its raw material. Rivard explains that although many of the band are trained musicians and have come from the jazz tradition, they’re also informed by the aesthetic of DJ culture.

Their exotic journey begins with “Bass Beat Box,” a Club staple built up from Rivard’s ascending bass scale and hammered down by two drummers (Jay Hilt plays “slow” with Kerr on “fast” drums). Electronic effects polish the drums to sound robotic, metallic—the pounding corrosive sound of futuristic funk.

A fluffy sound cloud (“Quilty”) melts into “Vishnu Dub,” strikingly colored by Fribgane’s oud and dumbek while guitarists Gerry Leonard and Duke Levine explore outer galaxies of sound. In the cool shadow of Jenifer Jackson’s doe-eyed vocal, “A Toy For A Boy” sounds like lost Syd Barrett, an oddly peaceful haven from the aggressive, relentless experimentation that follows in “Wet Bones (extended),” an interstellar reggae-dub cryptogram that builds outward in layers, and the electro-ethnic tour de force “Visions Of Kali.”

An octet that turns on guitarist Reeves Gabrels, keyboardist John Medeski and turntablist DJ Logic paints a portrait in sound for the title track, an electronic thrust into the blackest heart of modern darkness.

- Chris M. Slawecki - All About Jazz - Jan 10, 2007

The scene was not atypical for a Thursday night at the Lizard Lounge: a mess of instruments including guitars, electric and acoustic bass, the three-stringed Moroccan instrument called the sintir, trap drums, and percussionist Jerry Leake's tablas set off in a little Plexiglas crib (to prevent audio leaks and feedback), and in the middle of it all Mike Rivard, alternately playing the acoustic bass and stage-directing. The music has been building for several minutes, an impossibly complex lattice of cross-rhythms, and now he's gesturing to guitarist Randy Roos on his left and electric-mandolinist Matt Glover on his right. What does he want them to do? Trade fours? How exactly do you count four bars in the midst of all this? Soon, though, with Rivard plucking running counterpoint, Roos and Glover are trading and overlapping lines and call-and-response riffs and the music continues to chug to a final bowed Rivard cadenza.

"That's what happens when you don't rehearse," Rivard says about his impromptu stage-managing. "I just wanted them to play together." And what was that crazy meter? "Four/four . . . well, really 12/8, it was that Gnawan rhythm I was telling you about." Oh, yeah, the Gnawan rhythm. Where the accents are all in the wrong place and it's impossible for a novice to find the "one."

Rivard has been making complex, grooving "unrehearsed" music more or less every other Thursday at the Lizard since the summer of 1998 with a large rotating cast of characters. The core has included Leake, keyboardist John Medeski, pianist Alain Mallet, oud and dumbek player Brahim Fribgane, violinist Mat Maneri, guitarist Gerry Leonard, DJ Logic, and drummer Erik Kerr. That night last month had saxophonist Tom Hall and drummer Dean Johnston. Next Thursday, October 12, Rivard is expecting Kerr, Medeski, guitarists Duke Levine and Dave Tronzo, and turntablist Mister Rourke. The occasion will be the celebration of Now I Understand (Accurate), their first-ever studio album. The double CD As Above was recorded at the Lizard and released in 2000, and three double CDs of various concert recordings were released by live-disc specialists Kufala in 2004. But Now I Understand was a chance for Rivard and Club d'Elf to rehearse, to try and reject ideas, to record multiple parts for a single tune and pick the best, and for Rivard to shape the material compositionally in a way that he doesn't have an opportunity to do on alternate Thursdays with that rotating cast of all-stars.

And 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. Rivard says that one of the challenges of creating Now I Understand was to paint as varied a canvas as possible while sustaining the unity of a "concept" album. So even though the original tracks were laid down not long after that first gig in 1998, he found himself continually adding and subtracting. There are now two other completed volumes in the can — one that delves into dub versions of old blues, another that's predominantly Moroccan and "world" music in its feel.

Now I Understand, he says, is the "darker," side, indulging the band's taste for cyberpunk, sci-fi, and comic pranksterism, with a subtext of political protest. It starts with a scratchy old sci-fi narrator: "The world is under attack at this very moment by the most powerful forces man has ever seen!" Sustained organ tones and spooky mellotron enter, and then Erik Kerr's fierce drum 'n' bass–style patter. When the melody returns, it's in an oscillating theremin voice (Medeski's keyboards again). Throughout, Rivard smoothly varies texture, meter, and tempo. One of his most effective devices is to alternate Kerr's double-time snare with passages of Jay Hilt's half-time John Bonham stomp. There's Maneri's uncanny channeling of early-'70s Miles Davis in a wah-wah voice that conjures both Miles's electric trumpet and guitarist John McLaughlin. The one vocal feature, "A Toy for a Boy," an old William Sanford tune sung here by Jenifer Jackson, could with its allusions to Chinese scales and Duke Levine's smooth blues guitar be a lost Steely Dan track. There's Beat fellow traveler Michael Brownstein reciting his paranoid poem "Monologue From the Top," and, to wipe away all tragedy, a charming dub-reggae closer built on a sample of one of Kerr's kids saying, "I was just kiddin'!"

One of the paradoxes of Club d'Elf has always been Rivard's adaptation of the studio techniques of electronica and hip-hop to live musicians playing in "real" time. So the d'Elf crew are impersonating sample effects that were in turn drawn from live musicians to begin with. Rivard: "It is kind of an ode to that old-school way of doing things while still trying to incorporate all the influences we have with DJ culture and electronic music. Because that's all now part of the musical vocabulary, like learning Coltrane solos. For my bass playing, looping and electronic music have been as influential as Dave Holland or Mingus."

He describes himself trying "to sound like a loop, where I imagine a dub producer like Bill Laswell or Lee "Scratch" Perry, and I'm moving my fader like they might be at the helm, dropping out for a couple of bars, so you still have the line going through your head, and then I come in for maybe a note. It's sort of about thinking like a 'meta producer' ". Rivard isn't bitter about a changing musical landscape that has put a lot of live musicians out of business but also allows him to trade files with a player in Lithuania or Morocco. "However I do miss that feeling of sitting in the same room together". And rehearsing.

-- JON GARELICK - Boston Phoenix, October 4, 2006

Eight years. Ninety players. Hundreds of shows. Infinite possibilities. That, in a nutshell, is what Club d'Elf bandleader Mike Rivard was facing when he began sifting through tapes to assemble the celebrated Boston collective's first-ever studio album.

"In a lot of ways this project was insane," says Rivard of the debut, "Now I Understand" (out as a joint release between Cambridge's Hi-N-Dry and Somerville's Accurate labels). "It defies logic." Making the album, he says, "wasn't done with any sort of eye on the marketplace, or any sense of what radio station's going to play this or what format we're going to fit into. It's uncategorizable."

Uncategorizable it may be, but ever since Rivard -- a Berklee-trained bassist who's performed with everyone from Aimee Mann and Shawn Colvin to Morphine and Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker -- launched d'Elf in 1998 as a free-floating instrumental enterprise keen on unfettered improvisation and genre-obliterating exploration, an expanding group of listeners has embraced the d'Elf sound (as if there was merely one). Rivard prefers to liken the group's transmuting tones and fluctuating tempos, and the intuitive, collective unconscious among its players, to "the music of dreams."

Billy Beard, a drummer who also books music for the Lizard Lounge and its sister club, Toad, remembers giving d'Elf its first show -- and being thrilled with the results. "From the first couple of gigs, it became clear that this was a fantastic match of art and venue," says Beard via e-mail. "Any time you have truly gifted players who, beyond all of the ability, talent, and expertise they possess, have mastered the art of listening to each other, you are bound to have something special happen."

"Now I Understand" does a great job of capturing and reining in most, if not all, of the group's polyglot influences. (To experience the full spectrum of d'Elf's sonic universe, you'd need to check out its seven double-disc live sets, available at clubdelf.com).

The new CD, whose material will get a live airing when Club d'Elf visits its favorite haunt, the Lizard Lounge, Thursday, is an intoxicating, mad-chemist mix of the organic and electronic: dub-dosed acid jazz spiked with elements of trance-inducing traditional Moroccan Gnawa and Berber music; psychedelic rock excursions set to looped beats and deep dance-floor grooves.

It's an ambitious work, of course, but eight years? Rivard knows this sounds like the timeline of either a world champion procrastinator or an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist. "I was trying to get a meta-d'Elf, the ultimate snapshot of what the band is about, with as many people who have played with the band as I could get on there," he says. Rivard eventually settled for including two dozen of nearly 100 players who've passed through the group's ranks, among them high-profile heavyweights such as Medeski Martin and Wood keyboardist John Medeski, Moroccan oud player Brahim Fribgane (who's worked with Peter Gabriel among others), and David Bowie guitarist Reeves Gabrels .

Then there was the question of how to treat the material. The eight-minute "Vision of Kali," for instance, is an exotic collision of East and West that integrates nearly a dozen instruments, including oud, dumbek , electric viola, clavinet, and Hammond organ. "Each of these tracks could be mixed a million different ways, and there were so many different elements that to have them all would overwhelm the listener," says Rivard, who produced and arranged the tracks in nine recording studios. "A lot of [the work] was editing and moving things around, saying goodbye and weeding things out. You've got to leave space for things to breathe. I didn't have a record company that I was doing it for, so I didn't have anybody breathing down my back or presenting . . . deadlines, which was both a blessing and a curse."

The eight-year project produced much more than the 67 minutes of music represented on the new disc. "This CD is only the tip of the iceberg," Rivard says, adding that he's got enough music in the can to release at least a couple more studio albums. Those may include some of the last recordings made by his late friend and former d'Elf collaborator , Morphine leader Mark Sandman.

Despite the care with which Rivard has compiled a studio album that documents what Club d'Elf is and where it's been, the stage is truly where the collective flourishes and draws inspiration. On any given night, it is the place Club d'Elf calls home, where just about anything can happen, and often does -- the setting, Rivard says, where an almost "supernatural" or "spiritual" simpatico takes over. "There's a tacit understanding that everybody checks their egos at the door," he says. "Everybody's there to contribute, like a musical salon, to have a conversation. There's a real give and take, a lot of listening, a lot of laying out. And then, when the time comes, it's about stepping up and blowing like there's no tomorrow. Like it's the last gig that we'll ever do."

- Jonathan Perry, Globe Correspondent | - Boston Globe, November 5, 2006

Bassist Mike Rivard likens his Boston-based ensemble Club d'Elf, not inappropriately, to Charles Mingus's volatile Jazz Workshops. Less a fixed entity than a laboratory with a rotating cast, Club d'Elf combines the roaring avant-funk of electric-era Miles with the legato drift of the Grateful Dead. Manic Berber bop, hypnotic Moroccan gnawa (abetted by oud player Brahim Fribgane) and blissful electronica are usually present in the mix as well.

Three new double-CD live releases on the Kufala label give a good sense of the project's range. Gravity All Nonsense Now, taped in May 2003 at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, Massachusetts, soars on the twinned guitars of Dave Tronzo and David Fiuczynski, at its peaks conjuring a Derek and the Dominoes floating on a cough-syrup current. Recorded nine months later in the same room, 100 Years Of Flight pairs Tronzo with Mat Maneri's incisive electric violin, mining a lode of muscular, Mahavishnu-esque prog.

Keyboardist John Medeski stretches out on Live: Tonic, NYC 5/26/04; so does guitarist Marc Ribot, who rarely sounds this gonzo in his own bands. Turntablist Mister Rourke, also present on Gravity, is an integral part of the musical fabric. The biggest difference is the razor-sharp funk of Adam Deitch, who cut his teeth as house drummer at the Nuyorican Poets cafe and perfected his monster groove in John Scofield's recent jam units. Rivard, Fribgane and Deitch serve as Club d'Elf's nexus during a month of Tuesdays at the Tap Bar, promising heady music that doesn't neglect the tail.

- Steve Smith

- TIME OUT NEW YORK April 28 - May 4, 2005

After seven double-CD releases of live material (!), Club d'Elf finally drop their first studio album, eight years in the making. They're still plying their patented world fusion/avant-garde jazz/dub/trance chillout music and the m.o. is still basically the same, but the studio aspect allows for greater options on a number of levels. Club d'Elf's Mike Rivard can draw from an unbelievable talent pool (close to 100 players have been "members" of the club), but the live shows are constrained by who can physically attend the gig on any given night. With the studio, Rivard can put together any band he wants, whether they could all be in the same room at the same time or not. The studio also allows for a lusher, more layered sound, multiple overdubs, and detailed production touches that just can't be pulled off live. For example, "Wet Bones" was purely a studio construction built around a Billy Martin solo drum track (released on Illy B Eats, Vol. 1) and has Rivard playing a couple basses as well as sintir and effects. You can't do that live. Other tracks, like "Bass Beat Box" and "Now I Understand," have been part of the live show for years, but benefit from the added production. Great performances litter Now I Understand, but John Medeski and Mat Maneri deserve special mention (just check the Mellotron/electric viola feature on "Bass Beat Box") for their near ubiquity on the album. Guitarists Duke Levine, Dave Tronzo, and Reeves Gabrels are also on board for a track each. Brahim Fribgane contributes some earthy oud playing in several spots, and both Mister Rourke and DJ Logic turn in some nice work on the turntables, with Rivard anchoring the proceedings throughout with his big fat bass grooves. Now I Understand isn't an improvement over the live d'Elf shows; it's a different side of the same organism. Consider it the polished gemstone to the uncut diamonds of the live releases. Excellent. - Sean Westergaard - All Music Guide