With the steady pulse of shaman drums, aboriginal percussion and masterful multi-layered didgeridoos, Byron and Dashmesh create a psychoactive sonic dreamscape that beckons the listener to explore the depths of the Primordial Source.

Heart-centered waves provided by synthesizer wizard Frore (Paul Casper) help the explorer to summon the courage and curiosity for deep exploration into the known and unknown – the seen and unseen. Healing happens here. Transformation happens here. Ultimately it is the cellular impulse of pure awareness that calls us here – infinite possibilities – unfolding into the Great Mystery and Beyond. This is the essence of the journey – Heart of the Deep Time serves as the ideal musical support and companion for truly Diving Deep.

Heart of the Deep Time is comprised of 9 parts, seamlessly working together and designed for uninterrupted listening. This music is ideal for journey-work, various forms of deep meditation, inspired movement, and entheogenic exploration.

Bonus items available ONLY on Bandcamp! 

Available on all streaming services on July 15, 2022

In this highly anticipated sequel to ‘The Precipice of Choice’, Byron Metcalf gathers a tribe of visionary musicians to create an intensely pulsating homage to our primal origins through the cellular memory of rhythm and sound.

Driving percussion and powerful, mind-bending soundscapes activate and awaken the dynamism of your innate life-force. Breathe, dance and move! Journey deep to explore ancient sources of intelligence, guidance and inspiration, and allow the tribal-trance rhythms to dissolve any blocks or barriers to your receiving the direct transmission from the wisdom of the living earth and your own soul.

Music for journeying, breathwork, trance dance and inspired movement,,

dynamic meditation and entheogenic exploration

Digital album available on Byron's Bandcamp page and all other digital retailers. 

Streaming on all major services beginning Feb 18, 2022

Available Worldwide Sept 17th! Go here to listen to tracks and for more details.

Rhythms of Remembering is a luminously-woven contemplative soundscape journey combining ecstatic drumming, sweeping vignettes of synthesizer and ambient guitar, and wind-riding flights of drifting flute, all of which simultaneously relax and transport the listener beyond ordinary reality. Through this potent tonic of pulsing beats, meticulous fractal synth tapestries, billowing guitar riffs, and heart-opening flute transmissions, a sonic alchemy activates a combined visionary and somatic experience that will put you in an enlivened-yet-relaxed state of deep unity of body, heart-mind, Earth, and Cosmos. With simmering percussion from frame drum wizard Byron Metcalf, vista-conjuring guitar and synthesizer sequences from soundscape maestros Erik Wøllo and Frore (Paul Casper), and wafting, sky-borne flute pieces by Sherry Finzer, Rhythms of Remembering will support you in slowing down to your natural rhythm, yielding to the needs of your feathered-soul, and remembering your cherished place in the larger web of life.

Byron and Mark have gathered again to create a deeply meditative album inspired by their critically acclaimed 2019 release ‘Persistent Visions’. During the initial recording phase of ‘The Winds of Spirit’, an increasing intuition emerged for these long-time collaborators to penetrate even deeper into the dimensions of silence and space between the musical notes and each breath. Byron’s easy and steady percussive magic, holding space for Mark’s hauntingly mesmerizing exploration of Bansuri flutes, conveys a sense of the Winds of Spirit gently blowing through the flutes and the entire sonic landscape – in much the same way it does through our lives. The listener is invited into this arising metaphor – immersed in the flow of existence with a calm sense of trust that carries us home.

With additional musical support from Dashmesh and Paul Casper, ‘The Winds of Spirit’, provides heart-centered sonic support for extended meditation practices, massage and body work, entheogenic and empathogenic exploration.

Designed for continuous, uninterrupted listening.

Go here to listen to tracks.

To purchase the album with bonus items go HERE

The Precipice of Choice

Byron Metcalf

Now, more than at any time in our planetary history, we have become a global civilization inextricably intertwined within a living tapestry of interconnectedness, and all of our choices affect the whole.

A timely sequel to the high-powered 2007 release “A Warning From the Elders,” The Precipice of Choice is simultaneously a polyrhythmic requiem for a planet in trouble and an initiatory gateway for people willing to answer the call-to-action in a time of unparalleled change. We are, indeed, on a precipice – economically and ecologically –, and the choices we make now may determine the literal survival of our species.

Weaving a potent line-up of featured musicians and guests, The Precipice of Choice is an empowered, highly-auspicious sonic signature for the gauntlet of time through which our global civilization is passing. Driven by deep concern about the immense societal and planetary challenges we face, Byron Metcalf’s embodied vision for this album will usher the listener through an experience of activating and mobilizing the conscious Heart-Warrior within. All choices, ultimately, begin at the level of the heart.

SACRAMENT - Pre-Order Now! 

Sacrament:

Ceremony or Ritual, Imparting Divine Grace

In modern culture there are many ways to do sacred ceremony and to experience Sacrament. For those who pursue deep self-exploration, healing and transformation, this album can be used in a variety of ceremonial styles – from those that are explicitly shamanic in nature, to those which are contemplative, and to those which are plant based and entheogenic. The partaking of this sacrament invites the listener to experience Earth as the Mother of us all – to become whole.

Byron Metcalf and Jennifer Grais have delivered into our hands a stunning support for the sacramental. This music was birthed from the ground of sacred ceremony and is structured in a way that helps guide the listener to a higher frequency where wisdom and healing energies can be accessed.

The album’s musical themes and prayers move in sync with the stages of ritual process. The sensuous power of the percussion, musical instrumentation and extraordinary vocals create a multilayered space in which one can see through the surface appearances of things­ – into the mysterious world of Spirit moving through the vast sonic landscapes.

The rich layering of indigenous instruments and percussive textures with Jennifer’s spirit-driven voice opened my heart and mind to multiple dimensions, a vaster space than my everyday mind. The “Spirit Wind” soundworld created a sense of spaciousness, as if I were out in the desert, like Castaneda, hearing the wind bounce echoes off the canyon walls, sitting by a sacred fire with the maestro don Juan Matus.

– C. Michael Smith, Ph.D. (aka Mikkal), author of Psychotherapy and the Sacred, and Jung and Shamanism in Dialogue. 

Legendary percussionist Byron Metcalf's Inner Rhythm Meditations Vol II continues the immersive journey into hypnotic rhythms and haunting melodic textures which he began on the critically acclaimed, award-nominated 2016 album Inner Rhythm Meditations – Music for Expanded Awareness and Inspired Movement. Once again joined by noted sound sculptor Erik Wøllo & world-class flutist Peter Phippen, Metcalf explores a haunting landscape that gravitates between pulsing sensuality and drifting contemplation. Inner Rhythm Meditations Vol II is a deeper exploration of the dynamic interplay between the energetic and the subtle— sometimes vibrant, sometimes spacious. The seven tracks perfectly portray the exquisite dance that can occur between stillness and motion, each trait coalescing into the other at times, but also each venturing into their own unique sonic landscape. A profoundly meditative listening experience, this album presents an opportunity to journey inward while also providing a backdrop for movement through space. In this way, Inner Rhythm Meditations Vol II is the best of both worlds in the genre of music for reflection and contemplation.

Völuspa is a fascinating creation myth – a powerful journey of creation, destruction and renewal. Narrated by Ralph Metzner and supported by a dramatic and potent soundtrack by Byron Metcalf (feat. Dashmesh Khalsa), this unique album is designed to take the listener on a personal exploration of the cycles and mysteries of death and rebirth that are ever present in the human psyche.

Ralph Metzner is a living legend – a true icon in the field of Transpersonal Psychology, shamanism and so much more. For more than 30 years I’ve regarded Ralph as one of my most important teachers and mentors even though we’ve never formally worked together as such. So I felt incredibly honored when Ralph approached me about collaborating on this project. Having Ralph visit my studio and home and share some professional and personal time together will remain one of the most treasured events of my life.

I’ve never composed a ‘soundtrack’ before but once I found myself immersed in this project and the story, it became clear that I needed to approach the music production from that perspective. My long-time collaborator and friend Dashmesh Khalsa contributed lots of sonic textures and sound worlds that helped take the soundtrack to a much higher level. If fact, it turned out so well that we decided to create a remix of the soundtrack (music only) as an additional track that can support many kinds of journey work, breathwork, inspired dance and movement and entheogenic exploration.

Go here to purchase and stream: 

Like the majesty and magic of America’s wild horses that informed the creation of this project, the music on this album is highly evocative and emotional – a mystical infusion of beauty and tenderness - of power and potency.  The impeccable blend of Jennifer Grais’s beautiful and haunting vocals with Byron Metcalf’s renowned tribal-trance drumming and production style creates an astounding listening experience of numinous depth and sonic ecstasy. Horse as ‘Spirit Animal’ represents and mirrors the innate life-force, power, wildness, and the instinctual impulse for freedom within all of us. They Were Here takes the listener on a unique shamanic adventure – a freedom ride of soaring potential and along the way they are held gently and safely in the arms of Mother Earth.

Purchase the digital album on Byron’s Bandcamp page

Check out the album samper promo video

An immersive journey into the rhythms and music

of spaciousness and movement

In many indigenous traditions, we learn to “tune into the sacred rhythms of the earth.” With Inner Rhythm Meditations, master percussionist Byron Metcalf presents an album of music created to help listeners connect to the pulse of the cosmos. Byron takes listeners on a seamless, hour-long voyage—balancing stretches of spacious relaxation with sections of vibrant, energetic composition. Featuring a subtle blend of percussion and gentle instrumentation, including guitar synthesizers and bamboo flutes, here is an album that evokes the dance between stillness and motion—ideal for body work; movement practices such as walking meditation and qigong; and promoting a state of relaxed, alert creativity.

Shipping Now!

Free streaming of the entire album on Bandcamp

Check out the promo video 

"The Making of Inner Rhythm Meditations"

When indigenous shamans connect to the spirit world, they don’t sit still and let their mind wander—they dance with the spirits and let their power animals dance through them. Today, ecstatic dancers and shamanic practitioners speak of being “transported” by music, carried away in body and soul to an expanded state of being. On Shamanic Trance Dance, world-class trance percussionist and shamanic practitioner Byron Metcalf masterfully blends timeless indigenous sounds of drums, percussion and didgeridoo with driving trance rhythms and foundational electro grooves. The result is an organic sound tapestry that impels you to move—freeing the mind, energizing the body, and opening your spirit to inspiration.

Byron is joined by supporting musicians from Australia, Peru, Germany, Arizona and Colorado. The result is a truly unique synthesis of the primordial and contemporary rhythms and sounds of trance, ritual dance and transformation – authentically informed with shamanic wisdom and practice by all of those involved in Shamanic Trance Dance.

The six tracks on Shamanic Trance Dance invite the listener and the dancer to explore the various landscapes of the shamanic world in a personal and experiential way. Dance and merge with your own inner-wisdom and animal spirits; travel through your inner and outer realities from a totally embodied perspective; play with the rhythms of your breath and body; confront and transcend blocks and barriers that inhibit and stifle your growth and creative energies.

Digital Downloads available at these retailers

Sounds True

Amazon

iTunes

Award-winning shamanic-trance drummer Byron Metcalf and master didgeridoo artist Rob Thomas of Inlakesh combine their musical and personal medicines to create an extremely potent sonic brew. MEDICINE WORK is a psychoactive offering ­­– synergistically forged in the timeless hearth of shamanic intent and ceremony and is designed to guide and support intrepid travelers into deeper territories of their inner worlds ­– far beyond the known and familiar.

MEDICINE WORK is a call to the deep journey. An invitation to explore vast mysteries of Initiation & Rites of Passage; Alchemy & Transmutation; Transformation & Transcendence; Cycles of Death & Rebirth; realms of the primordial, archetypal & mythological filtering through layers of the individual self and the boundless dimensions of transpersonal consciousness. ­The journey concludes with the safe return Home to the harmonic resonance of the traveler’s Heart and True Nature.

"MEDICINE WORK could have been created a thousand years ago, hidden from the world and used only for the highest degree of altering consciousness with instruments that have remained unchanged over the Eons; hand drums, rattles and didgeridoo. Thankfully for us, trance percussion alchemist Byron Metcalf and didgeridoo maven Rob Thomas (Inlakesh) are not hidden away in another era doing their medicine work for a forgotten tribe obscured by time. This recording puts the listener directly ‘inside’ the experience though high resolution recording skills and searing performances aimed at one thing: blowing away all the residue of the day-to-day with these ancient tools, presented in almost 3D clarity and preservation of tone. Rob’s didgeridoo is presented in such detail that it feels cellular and the interlocking patterns of Byron's percussion work invoke an involuntary trance state that just simply feels as if you never want it to stop – and it will not once you hit play." – Steve Roach

Byron Metcalf and Mark Seelig join forces again to focus and intensify the transformative power of their musical collaboration. 

Intention is a totally acoustic, transcultural tour de force of multi-layered tribal-ambient rhythms, indigenous instruments, and mesmerizing soundscapes – expertly crafted to induce and support expanded states of consciousness. Byron’s potent and spellbinding drumming and percussion merge with Mark’s haunting and beautiful bansuri flutes and Tuvan-style throat singing to create a bold, larger-than-life journey into infinite possibilities. Rob Thomas (Inlakesh) and Dashmesh Khalsa contribute aboriginal didgeridoo textures to further deepen and expand the sonic field.

Neuroscience has confirmed what shamanic and ancient spiritual traditions have known for thousands of years: Intention plays a fundamental role in manifesting inner and outer reality. This is especially important for those involved in deep inner-work, visionary rituals, ceremonies and practices.

Intention is infused with steadfast power and authority while the listener is held and supported by the tempered and refined sensitivity and compassion of Byron and Mark’s unparalleled understanding of expanded states of consciousness. Over 3 decades of self-exploration, professional therapeutic and academic work serves as foundational substrate for these artists’ uniquely innovative musical approach. Byron and Mark have recorded 3 previous CDs: Wachuma’s Wave (2003), Mantram (2004) and Nada Terma (2008) - all of which were created in collaboration with tribal ambient-electronic pioneer Steve Roach.

For this album, the listener is invited to set an Intention before the journey begins, and surrender into an incomparable audio-initiated encounter with the primordial and the ecstatic: the vision of authentic communion within the source of all reality. Explore and experience the breadth and depth of Intention in this ground-breaking, utterly original sonic synthesis of tribal/ambient/world music!

TRACKS

1 Intention (22:33)

2 Surrender (9:47)

3 Encounter (15:59)

4 Focus (11:11)

5 Vision (9:51)

To listen to entire tracks and purchase digital downloads go here.

(From 2007) In this latest solo project, Byron expands his sonic explorations of the shamanic path of soul-based and heart-centered living that is the foundation of his work. Inspired and driven by his increasing frustration related to our current global and planetary challenges, A Warning From The Elders invites the listener to whole-heartedly embrace the urgency facing the planet, while also birthing the dormant seeds of hope and vision that lie within each of us. In essence, Byron’s CD is a healing prayer for a radical global awakening. Motivated by a deep and purposeful commitment to make his “voice” fully heard, A Warning From The Elders is the first project where Byron has used his overtone singing to create harmonic drones and soundscapes. With this potent emphasis on the raw, organic sounds of wood, skin, metal, clay, stone, and the human voice, Byron’s masterful production results in a delicious blend of fierce percussion, heart-opening textural voices and overtone singing – a bold sonic expression of power, purpose, presence and compassion for the Earth – the Mother of us all.

After being out of print for over 2 years, by popular request the original is now available in a new eco-friendly digipak. The heart is like an alchemical chamber – possessing the power to transform and transmute, fears, wounds, and patterns that block us from always traveling on what Don Juan called “the path with heart.” The ability to remain “heart centered” – to stay connected to one’s compassionate core in the face of adversity and personal challenge is a hallmark of spiritual and psychological maturity. Shamanism is an ancient spiritual system that helps develop the capacity to live fully in the world of the heart. Using ancient and contemporary rhythmic techniques, the intention of THE SHAMAN’S HEART is an invitation to journey into the infinite regions of this heart-space dimension. . . and beyond.

THE SHAMAN’S HEART is a continuous 73 minute journey using varying rhythmic subdivisons of the classic 220 beats per minute journey tempo. The uninterrupted experience is created from a collection of buffalo drums, frame drums and rattles. This time and space altering ceremony is supported with an evolving, breathing atmosphere of subtle contrasting harmonic embraces. Adding to the experience is the sense that it is all occurring in a grounded, environmental space through the use of sounds from the natural world. This potent offering of “music as medicine” can guide and support even the most intrepid of inner travelers.

OUT OF STOCK

Seeking the Unknown Within, the voyage begins - Wachuma, Spirit of the four winds, the night-blooming king of night, ushers us on a voyage of soulful remembrance; a remembrance of what we are, and what we may be. Wachuma's Wave is sacred music in the truest sense. It is a portal of travel, a soul retrieval, a ritual of deep time dreaming. Veteran trance percussionist Byron Metcalf teams up with German-based musician and shamanic practitioner Mark Seelig to bring forth a multi-textural blend of bansuri flutes, sacred chants and overtone singing, simmering percussion and other hybrid grooves, augmented by rich offerings of deep drift ambient synthesizer and didgeridoo from soundscape maestro Steve Roach. Fans of The Serpent's Lair (Roach-Metcalf) will be thrilled by this innovative and heart-stirring alchemy. - Frank MacEowen

“Tales From the Ultra Tribe”

Steve Roach & Byron Metcalf

After two years pushing the creative edges, Tales From the Ultra Tribe emerges as a fire-breathing life form. The deep trance-shamanic-atmospheric collaboration between Steve Roach and Byron Metcalf evokes the primordial caverns and aeon-blasted landscapes of their groundbreaking The Serpent's Lair (Projekt, 2000).

And yet on Tales From the Ultra Tribe, a new sound emerges.

It's a lucid trance-groove experience, a searing combination of acoustic percussion and hyper-dimensional electronic rhythms. The Ultra Tribe are the future primitives: the future-tech foundation wrapped by the organic. It's no longer clear where the human ends and the machine begins.

The elements of this sound are Steve's complex hybrid-grooves overlaid by Byron's primal, fluid and organic - yet precise - frame drums and percussion. It's an atmosphere of shifting soundworlds in which the forms of the Ultra Tribe exist. An alchemy of electronic sequencers, drum machines and percussion locks in the groove, while the human element jumps in and out of the steady pulse, giving the music a passionate intensity. The elements are deftly shaped to a point of complete integration where the final result is transformed into a living breathing body with an electro-organic soul.

As one the original architects of the tribal-ambient genre, Steve Roach's innovations are mapped out on the landmark albums Origins, Artifacts, and Dreamtime Return, along with releases from the Suspended Memories trio and the more recent Fever Dreams series. Similarly, Byron Metcalf’s tribal-shamanic albums Helpers, Guides & Allies, Not Without Risk, The Shaman’s Heart, and A Warning From the Elders, serve as a benchmark for deep journey exploration. In the late 90's, Steve teamed up with Byron, and over the span of a dozen years they've created an array of releases that explore and push the outer edges of shamanic-electronic tribalism.

The eight pieces on Tales From the Ultra Tribe are built into a seamless 74-minute deep-journey experience. Adding to the overall impact is a high resolution sound achieved through masterful recording and mixing techniques. With a multi-dimensional trance-groove trajectory, the sound is a tribal-electronic well of experience. A continuous kaleidoscope of visionary power, mystery and visceral awe envelops the listener. The synergistic alchemy of Steve’s and Byron’s work fuses to new levels of audio-induced, mind-expanding music.

INVENTORY SALE!!

Earth Om - Sacred Resonance

Exploring Your Relationship with the Earth

with

Byron Metcalf, Ph.D.

As we face the truth about our global crisis and the devastating impact of climate change, it is clear that we, as human inhabitants of this planet, now find ourselves at a critical point where our survival depends on our ability and willingness to develop a healthy, balanced and sustainable relationship with the Earth – the Mother of Us All.

The intention of the Earth Om – Sacred Resonance exercise is to help you explore your relationship with the Earth in a very personal way – and to cultivate a deeper and more personal connection with Her. This exercise is highly experiential and interactive, and will provide you with an opportunity to closely examine the unique qualities, characteristics, beliefs and other dynamics that form your relationship with the Earth and all that this relationship means to you.

Combining shamanic rhythm & sounds, verbal guidance, chanting and Field Effect Audio Technology™, Earth Om – Sacred Resonance provides a gentle and powerful heart-centered journey of self-discovery into your relationship with Mother Earth.

Designed to be used as a stand-alone exercise or as an advanced exercise with

The Shaman’s Heart Program (Monroe Products, 2007)

Please click on the following links for more information on Earth Om – Sacred Resonance and Field Effect Audio Technology™

Earth Om

Field Effect Audio Technology

Electronic musician Erik Wøllo joins tribal-trance percussionist Byron Metcalf for an elegant album weaving melodic, vibrant soundscapes with subtle, grounding rhythms.

Earth Luminous stirs the memory on an outing through luminescent electronic ambient music where the ethereal is anchored and activated by steady, tactile frame drums and percussive patterns. Byron’s tight-to-the-grid substratum pulse serves as a conduit to Erik’s lush, emotive and expansive atmospheres. Together, the two sonic explorers find a meeting place where vapor trails and glowing man-made cityscapes reveal that we, the modern humans, are the ones who bring into existence the enlightened earth: our explorations illuminate to bring cascading insight.

The dramatic images of the album cover reflect the music’s contemplative and timeless perception of our planet. Seeing the world from above from an airplane’s cockpit (in photos taken by pilot Ian Dutton) reveals reflective perspectives of the earth below: a magnificent visual confluence of the sky and the glittering nighttime urban city lights.

 Earth Luminous’ lustrous soaring themes, moving electronic drones, and bedrock ​rhythmic patterns drift and unfold in a lush electronic treatment of modern instrumental music. Cycles of layered synthesizers, harmonies, introspective slow-motion soundscaping, vibrant acoustic percussion, and illuminated electric guitar produce expansive and fluid tracks. The results are deeply​ thoughtful, seductive musings upon a radiant​ earth.

Digital downloads available here.

Buy SHAMANIC TRANCE DANCE & EARTH LUMINOUS for $20 (+ shipping) Save $10.00!

Shipping Now!

This psychoactive composition is designed to guide and support you into deeper territories of your own inner worlds – far beyond the known and familiar. Award-winning shamanic-trance drummer Byron Metcalf and master didgeridoo artist Rob Thomas of Inlakesh combine their musical and personal medicines to create this powerful sonic experience, heightened by the addition of Hemi-Sync®. Synergistically forged in the timeless hearth of shamanic intent and ceremony, this music is designed to guide and support intrepid travelers into deeper territories of their inner worlds ­– far beyond the known and familiar.

 Medicine Work with Hemi-Sync^® is a call to the deep journey. An invitation to explore vast mysteries of Initiation & Rites of Passage; Alchemy & Transmutation; Transformation & Transcendence; Cycles of Death & Rebirth; realms of the primordial, archetypal & mythological filtering through layers of the individual self and the boundless dimensions of transpersonal consciousness. The journey concludes with the safe return home to the harmonic resonance of the traveler’s heart and true nature. 

 For those of you who have heard the original Medicine Work, this new “Metamusic” version is even more potent as a shamanic tool. I personally found the depth of the trance state achieved to be amazing! Many thanks to Monroe Products studio engineer Kevin Cowan for helping to create such an incredible psychoactive sonic brew!

Digital Download available here and soon on itunes, Amazon and other major online retailers.

(Note: This Metamusic version is a single continuous track designed for uninterrupted listening - preferrably on headphones. Scroll up to the original Medicine Work album to hear clips of the various sections.)

The Shaman’s Heart II with Hemi-Sync^®

Byron Metcalf

Featuring Steve Roach

This powerful and potent shamanic journey invites the listener to make full contact with their heart, their own inner wisdom, and non-physical helpers and guides to reveal, heal and transform the habitual patterns and blocks that inhibit and stifle growth and creativity. Byron Metcalf’s continuous heartbeat rhythm, medicine rattles, heart and soul activating trance drumming combines with Hemi-Sync^® and Steve Roach’s sonic mastery for a rewarding and memorable shamanic journey. Repeated use of this music in a personal ritual or ceremonial context will enhance the heart’s capacities for love, compassion, courage, power, and strength.

For this new collaboration with Monroe Products, Byron remixed the original version of The Shaman’s Heart II to bring the drums and percussion more up front in the mix, which amplifies the sonic driving and entrainment effectiveness. Specially created Hemi-Sync^® mixes are added making The Shaman’s Heart II with Hemi-Sync^® a uniquely efficient tool for developing the various capacities of the heart. This is also the ideal album for extended shamanic journeys, breathwork, dynamic meditation, and other deep inner-work practices.

Byron discusses the background and creation of The Shaman’s Heart II in an interview with Monroe Products. Check it out here: 

The Shaman's Heart II – The Healing Journey is an entrancing 70-minute shamanic journey of uninterrupted, evolving tribal-trance drumming and percussion that continuously builds in rhythmic complexity and dynamic intensity. Byron is joined by Steve Roach who provides the harmonic and textural psychotropic stew created from a rich, organic and analog blend. The alchemy with the percussion results in an ecstasy that helps hold the space for the listener to journey far and deep into powerful and sustained shamanic states of consciousness. The journey culminates in a bursting forth through the full spectrum portal of pure existence – returning safely home to the heart-centered presence and potential of the true self.

The continuous heartbeat rhythm, medicine rattles, heart and soul activating trance drumming, combines with Steve’s sonic mastery and deep didgeridoo to firmly anchor the entire journey to the listener’s own sonically-driven trajectory. Repeated use of this music in a personal ritual or ceremonial context will enhance the heart’s capacities for love, compassion, courage, power, and strength.

With focused and clear intention, this sonic call to adventure draws on the traditional shamanic model that is proven over the eons to open the primal mind to access all levels of human experience including the upper, middle, and lower worlds of the shamanic landscape and various transpersonal realms of reality. The Shaman's Heart II is a powerful and potent shamanic journey that invites the listener to make full contact with their heart – their own inner wisdom and various non-physical helpers, guides and allies, to reveal, release, heal and transform the habitual patterns and blocks that inhibit and stifle their growth and creative energies.

Steve's pinnacle performance from 2010's SoundQuest Fest proved to be a real moment in time, and fortunately it was documented with a high resolution recording that places the listener front and center on that special night. Presented as a single CD, the first 74 minutes of the concert are experienced as it unfolded. Three distinct realms are seamlessly mapped out in this inspired set. The opening starts with a 25-minute piece of perpetual forward motion in the mode of DESTINATION BEYOND created specially for the concert, carved from pure analog synths and sequencers. From here we experience an amazing interplay between didgeridoo players Dashmesh Khalsa, Brian Parnham, percussionist Byron Metcalf and Steve performing real-time looping, processing and mixing along with soundworlds, ocarina and voice. This passage is an all-out expression of shamanic ecstasy that boils over into the engulfing tribal trance state of "Thunder Walk" from the recent release DREAM TRACKER. The last portion of the set settles into an ultra drifting electro-organic zone. This evocative space, which premiered at the Fest, would soon evolve into the opening of IMMERSION FIVE–CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS.

The essential ingredients of ancient and contemporary shamanic trance states are fully activated in this highly potent new release. Byron carved out a collection of incredible trance grooves for nearly a year, eventually bringing in the prana-infused didgeridoo of Dashmesh Khalsa on every track. Steve joined on in early January 2010 and poured his heart and soul-drenched soundworlds into the six pieces, covering a full range of ecstatic dreamtime flow: rhythm, breath and expansion.

The end result is a full-blown dreamtime alchemy of all the elements. The living, breathing percussion, didgeridoo and soundworlds are unified in a single purpose: to open to the door out of the ordinary world – initiating the listener into an empowered journey of infinite possibilities for spiritual rebirth, illumination, and transcendence.

To listen to entire tracks and purchase digital downloads go here

INDUCTION: Breathe ~ Surrender ~ Repeat

CDs back in print - Available Now - Digital downloads available here

By request I have edited and optimized some of my personal favorite tracks for breathwork, trance-dance and other forms of dynamic inner-exploration into a compilation CD. This special production CD contains nine up-tempo compositions designed to induce and support expanded states of awareness and the journey toward wholeness.

Featuring drums & percussion, didgeridoo, voice, drones, atmospheres & soundworlds

Guest Musicians: Steve Roach, Ron Oates, Jack Coddington, Rian McGonigal, Gail Chasin, Ted Usatynski, John Dumas, Jesse Pursley

Tracks compiled from Byron’s solo CDs:

"Helpers, Guides & Allies"

"Not Without Risk"

"A Warning From The Elders"

NOTE: "Not Without Risk" is out of print. All of the tracks are available on "Spirit Gathering" - a Metamusic version (with Hemi Sync) of Not Without Risk (please scroll up).

Following The Serpent's Lair (Projekt Records, 2000), the critically acclaimed collaboration with award winning recording artist and sonic innovator Steve Roach, NOT WITHOUT RISK is Byron Metcalf's second solo release. Byron's ability to combine his unique proficiency as a drummer/percussionist with his background as a psychologist and shamanic practitioner has been attracting fans and fellow voyagers worldwide since his 1998 debut release of Helpers, Guides & Allies. Byron's music is being used in a wide spectrum of contexts including experiential shamanism and journey work, various meditation practices, breathwork, trance dance, bodywork and other healing arts. Fusing layers of organic drums and percussion, didgeridoo, soundworlds and sonic atmospheres, various indigenous instruments and voice, NOT WITHOUT RISK invites and challenges the listener to push the boundaries of their own reality... to risk venturing into new levels and depths of one's self...

Originally released in 1998, Byron's 1st solo album is considered a classic in shamanic communities. The album is still selling well and is almost out of stock in its 4th pressing.

For over 40,000 years shamanic societies throughout the world have used various musical strategies to achieve altered states of consciousness. These states, which are believed to be essential components to most of their sacred rituals and ceremonies, offer infinite varieties of inner landscapes which the shaman must navigate in order to retrieve insight and wisdom, and bring healing to the community. Drums and percussion, played in a continuous, driving manner are the basic instruments used for these purposes. With this in mind, Helpers, Guides & Allies...was inspired by Byron's passionate interest and involvement in the healing potential of non-ordinary (altered states) of consciousness.