The brothers David and Steve Gordon are an established world music force with their own label and copious production credits, but that never stops them from recording albums that seem as fun and extemporaneous as a heavenly all-night outdoor music festival. Groove Tribe utilizes Native American tribal drumming as a base on which to expand and contract into dimensions where microcosm and macrocosm meet. The Gordons make the utmost of the spacious recording warmth with pan pipes and Native American flute soaring overhead while drums and thick, phat bass root below to create a full-on sound and spectacular, spectral holistic journey.

"Fire Dancer" opens things with Steve's flues and David's frame drums anchoring some growling synths that cohere into a bone-healing fuzz-box bass that anchors you to the earth's core, alongside a beautiful, simple four-note guitar line and reverberating chimes. Deep male chanting runs under "Hunab Ku Transmitter while "Sacred Medicine" has a pleasantly ominous, irresistible bass line running under gradually accruing synthesizers. That bass is so awesome you'll want to know how it was recorded, but Steve notes its all in their studied and painstaking EQ mixing. The Gordons earn their Groove Tribe moniker for sheer bass phatness alone.

There's no question that Steve and David Gordon have been on the forefront of the world music scene for quite a while, but what may blow your mind is just how far they continue to travel into the future and the past, into the mystic and onto the dance floor. Reconfigured through their brilliant fusion of sound mastering and solid groove-oriented playing, ancient sounds become futuristic. The Gordons enhance the perimeters of mind and sound in directions running back into the ancient past and forward into the 23rd century. Groove Tribe may be just one of many feathers in the Gordon brothers' headdresses, but it's a beautiful, irresistible, and timeless piece of work. Just let that bass into your soul and the drums and flutes and guitars will take care of the rest. Exaltation is only a play button away, and freedom is as easy to find as the volume knob. Just turn it up and move into the groove.

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"Fire Dancer" "Hunab Ku Transmitter" "Sacred Medicine"

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