Def Trance Beat: Modalities of Rhythm

• Track Listing

Music is for me first and foremost a form of communication. Music can also communicate emotions in a direct and abstract manner. In all of these cases what is understood by anyone experiencing this music depends on that listeners personal experience. Improvisation in music allows the musician to communicate or express in real time in the same manner as one person talking to another (or to a group of people). This quote from Steve Coleman exemplifies the approach of Steve Coleman and Five Elements. Since 1981 this group has been involved in a personal extension of the musical language of the Afrikan Diaspora. It is their aim to communicate these experiences to todays listeners. The groups current album Def Trance Beat documents the groups latest efforts in this arena. Following upon the success of the Five Elements last release The Tao of Mad Phat, Def Trance Beats musical form progresses with an intuitive flow while displaying insight into an ancient science, all within definitive creative musical structures. This particular way of expressing music and musical improvisation comes from the combination of individual and collective experiences and the general way the musicians vibrate spiritually in their environment. The compositions on the album are the result of the collective meditations approach that the group has explored on it's last two releases. This recording represents the final phase in that cycle. At the time of this recording the concept of the group was already heading in a new direction, that of realizing in musical form, some of the developments of ancient Kam (Egypt). Some of the compositions on Def Trance Beat lead the way in this development (Dogon, Multiplicity Of Approaches, The Khu and The Mantra).

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