It makes perfect sense an album titled Loon & Thrush would begin with “Bird Song.”

One of two Grateful Dead covers on the latest from Club d’Elf and dedicated to late band member Brahim Fribgane and departed Gratefuls Bobby Weir, Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia, “Bird Song” stays within the confines of Garcia’s composition and is utterly recognizable despite Moroccan undertones and electric sitar. 

Elsewhere, the Club members deconstruct “New Speedway Boogie.” While giveaway passages emerge and fadeaway across its seven wordless minutes, the track is essentially a Club d’Elf original for which the band members could’ve rightfully taken co-composers’ credits and would be utterly unrecognizable to a non-Dead Head.

Bassist and band leader Mike Rivard wrote the eight remaining Loon & Thrush instrumentals. And it’s remarkable such sonic diversity could emerge from one composer. 

Such titles as “Left Hand of Clyde,” “Dux Lux” and “Like a Silence” are genre-jumping but united by deep grooves in to which the band pours fusion, psychedelia, soul and hip-hop as its revolving door of collaborators add Chicago (the band)-styled horns, scratching and wordless vocals over guitar, keys and rhythm section. 

This music should be challenging, even difficult. But it’s simply engrossing.