Review Summary: I love the smell of jazz fusion in the morning
You Never Know's description on Bandcamp reveals to us that half of the tracks present are original pieces inspired by “Mike Rivard's personal journey into darkness following a near death experience in the remote jungle of the Peruvian Amazon”, while the other half consists of covers of artists that have been heavy influences over Club d'Elf's 24 year tenure, including Miles Davis, Joe Zawinul, Nass el-Ghivane, Frank Zappa, and various Gnawa songs from Northern Africa.
Of course, you don't need to have exchanged emails with label representatives in teeth-gnashing delirium seeking out watermarked albums to know that claims of influence listed in press releases are sometimes dubious, often bullshit. The bevy of namedrops tend to land with all the import of a leaf drifting to the forest floor;
For fans of Buddy Holly, Diamanda Galas, and late-career Britney Spears. Also heavily influenced by Buyer's Market
and the films of Bela Tarr. Sure, buddy. Show me the goods.
Consider this particular press release to be half indisputable truth (there are, indeed, covers of the listed material) and half irrelevant (as life-changing as Rivard's wild and mortally dangerous excursion was, images and feelings of hazardous jungles do not clearly emerge from the original compositions). While this may not be all that enlightening, I think that the words provided are misleading in a different manner than usual; they paint a picture of a release split in half and shot out in a double-barrel buckshot of tonal and thematic incongruence. This is at odds with the reality of
You Never Know, which scans as a near seamless front-to-back experience that meshes its ridiculous range and influence across an engaging series of tracks that are oddly cohesive — an impressive feat when we're dealing with more instruments than musicians and breakdancing on the borders of about twelve different genres.
Fortunately, this collective's performances are more than adept enough to hold your attention for 75 minutes of smoothly shifting arrangements. Band leader Rivard's basslines anchor each track, pairing with percussion that favours driving beats, leaving plenty of room for compositions to heat up, boil over, and simmer down as needed. Guitars and bass both with and without frets accompany most movements, keys of many flavours flourish, dub-style brass floats by, and a collection of unusual instruments are tactfully inserted to add a touch more character to almost every track. Basically every performer is left room to comp and solo in manners melodic or maniacal, with even the collective's trump card, one Mister Rourke, DJ extraordinaire, chopping shit up front-and-centre on occasion. Given the enviable genremelt that this thing is built upon, you can be sure that each track has at least a couple of reasons to stand out from the pack.
My unfailing journalistic ESP tells me that attempting to compile a highlights reel of
You Never Know will leave me lost in its overlapping biomes, chasing Mike Rivard's whims to the heart of darkness, and leave its prospective audience cold. Instead I can only encourage you to ignore all the noise, make the journey yourself, and decide for yourself whether the words hold any weight.
