Photo: Liz Liner

For fans of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter’s partnership, hearing mention of “Bird Song” can conjure a response that knee-jerks a run of lyrics: the opening verse’s demarcating limits, emotional spurt of sun-soaked cackles, and leading resolution of wind-wiped wails under starry heavens. While the original powers the weight of Hunter’s talents, Club d’Elf’s treatment does something impressive. Stripped of words, the first-rate improvisers’ take on the classic track summons lyrics where there are none, using instrumental gravitas that allows the track to flap its wings, take flight, and gain new elevation. 

Today’s Relix exclusive presents an in-studio look and listen to Club d’Elf’s take on “Bird Song,” the band’s Moroccan-infused demonstration of musical exploration rooted in the style and spirit of late member Brahim Fribgane. The new rendering of the Garcia classic derives from their latest album, Loon & Thrush, released on April 10, 2026, via Royal Potato Family, an expression that pays tribute to the Grateful Dead members who have passed, as well as their own, and continues a conversation that began in 1971. 

“My personal view is the world doesn’t necessarily need another straight cover of a Grateful Dead song, and when approaching the idea of Club d’Elf covering ‘Bird Song’, it was my intention to honor the wildly experimental side of the Dead by giving it a totally different vibe than any other version I was aware of,” Mike Rivard tells Relix. 

“When I played around with the main riff of the song, I found that it lent itself to the North African 12/8 rhythm called cha’abi, which also connected it to our departed bandmate, Brahim Fribgane. I wanted the song to be a tribute to the memories of the guys in the band that had crossed to the other side – Jerry, Phil and more recently Bobby – and with the cha’abi element, it was also testimony to all we had learned from Brahim and how his influence was still such a huge part of how we continue to create music.

“The song has always been one of my favorites that Garcia & Hunter wrote together, and the process of working on it connected me with the memory of one of my life’s great adventures – hitchhiking from my home in Forest Lake, MN to Red Rocks, CO in 1979 to see the band when I was 16. It was perhaps the greatest sense of freedom I’d ever experienced, reading Kerouac’s Dharma Bums and camping out and meeting a rogues gallery of characters along the way.”

An inside look at Club d’Elf’s interpretation of “Bird Song,” recorded live at Middleville Studio in North Reading, Mass., can be viewed below.