Metcalf, Byron

Artist: B.Metcalf & M.Seelig
P: 2019
Persistent Visions is a 70-minute heart-centered sonic meditation from veteran transformative shamanic practitioners Byron Metcalf and Mark Seelig. Designed for a continuous, uninterrupted listening experience that slowly evolves and builds with increasing tempo and dynamic complexity, Persistent Visions consists of six parts (visions). As seamless blending parts of a singular composition, these visions invite an expanding consciousness to find its way into a ecstatically blissful and oceanic completion.
“Heart-centered visions are rooted in the Truth of our souls and persistent visions are expressions of our soul’s Truth.” – Mark Seelig
Four years after their last collaborative masterwork Intention, these two kindred musical spirits merge their meditational music talents to guide both veteran meditators and adventurous newcomers on a soul-immersive path towards beauty and tranquility.
Byron’s superbly crafted meditative rhythms and patterns create a neural and sensory awareness of body and soul. Mark’s bamboo (bansuri) flute performance is based on two classic Indian ragas that are beautiful and haunting and at times celebratory.
From the dawn of history, spiritual seekers have relied upon visions for guidance, clarity, inspiration and more. Meditation, prayer, drumming, trance-inducing music, shamanic journeying, vision quests, ecstatic dance, and the ritual use of psychedelic plants and substances are some common approaches to the visionary experience. This album is a powerful support tool for extended meditation practices, massage and body work, entheogenic and empathogenic exploration, and any practice that is intended to reveal the Truth of one’s experience and life circumstances. Once the revelation of that Truth is recognized, the essential nature of persistence assumes the guiding role of an internal pathfinder. These seasoned veterans of shamanic and meditational music create a stunning recording that facilitates the unfolding nature of the visionary experience, and an alignment with the inner regions of the listener’s heart – an experience of balance and a deep sense of peace and calm. 

Artist:  Byron Metcalf + Rob Thomas
P:  2013
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

Artist:  Byron Metcalf & Steve Roach
P:  2005 / 2010
The Shaman's Heart is ethno-tribal music that is not only breathtaking, but will also induce an altered state of consciousness using Hemi-Sync technology. In this very powerful shamanic composition, Metcalf uses buffalo drums, rattles, udu, clay pots, seed pods, nature sounds, etc. It is very much like going on a mystical trip into a rainforest.
Byron Metcalf - Buffalo drums, bear & peyote rattles, udu & clay pot, frame drums, hybrid toms, various shamanic percussion (seed pods, beads, shells, pottery & stone), spirit winds, hoasca sounds.
Steve Roach - Analog and digital soundworlds, didgeridoo, ocarinas. (Additional shamanic percussion on track 5)
This is a powerful and unique rhythmic and soundworld trance experience based on the traditional structures of shamanic drumming used for altering states of awareness. The entire journey is built using a collection of buffalo drums, frame drums and rattles. Presented as a continuous, unfolding rhythmic state, starting with lone peyote rattles and evolving into mandala-like polyrhythmic bliss. Through it all is a shapeshifting undercurrent of essential soundworlds specifically provided to create support for the intrepid inner traveler. This is unlike any of the solo or collaborations from Byron and Steve.
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 subdivisions 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.

Artist:  Byron Metcalf & Steve Roach
P:  2011
THE SHAMAN'S HEART II 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.

Artist:  B.Metcalf & Shane Morris
P: 2023
In their first-ever collaboration, master ethno-percussionists and veteran ambient composers Byron Metcalf and Shane Morris align their cultivated powers to conjure an evocative soundworld for rhythmic ancient-future “travel.” A time-bending weave of layers of pulsing percussion (bells, drums, gongs, shakers, and ceremonial rattles), flowing flutes, didgeridoo, and shimmering synthesizer vignettes form the multicultural tapestry of soul-stirring sound. ANCESTRAL RESONANCE moves off the beaten path into a mysterious and shadowy sonic world of slow-pulse night sky dreams and hypnotic invocations designed to activate the echo of primal memory at the cellular level. With a mutual sensitivity to past, present, and future dimensions of the Seen and Unseen Worlds, and a shared resonance as seasoned ‘psychonauts,’ Metcalf and Morris guide us deep into the domain of the ancestors. We are the dreams of the ancestors.

Artist:  Byron Metcalf
P:  2007
In this 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.
 

Artist:  Byron Metcalf
P:  1998
Byron's critically acclaimed 1st solo album is considered a classic in the breathwork, shamanic and trance dance communities. In 2004, Helpers, Guides & Allies was re-mastered and sonically enhanced using the state of the art 24 bit technology available at that time. The re-mastered version features a wider stereo field and enhanced sonic detail throughout the entire audio spectrum. Of course, the raw power of the original 1998 release remains completely intact. The album is still selling well and is almost out of stock in its 4th pressing. When the current inventory is sold out, only the digital album will be available. NOTE: Some of the tracks for this digital album were edited (fade-ins and fade-outs) to ensure smooth transition during uninterrupted playback.
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. 

Artist:  Byron Metcalf
P:  2009
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".

Artist: B.Metcalf 
P: 2020
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.

Artist: Erik Wollo & Byron Metcalf
P: 2016
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.
Erik and Byron met at SoundQuest Fest 2010 hosted by Steve Roach in Tucson, AZ. Although they did not have the opportunity to perform together, they were impressed with each other’s sets and discussed the idea of collaborating on an album. After five years working on their own solo music, the duo reconnected to record this hybrid collaboration between continents and cultures. The pieces bring together a vast selection of synthesizers and electric guitars mixed with various acoustic hand drums and ​percussion​ instruments. Seven of the ​eight tracks were composed via audio files exchanged from Norway to Arizona and back again; while “Linked Stars,” the final and most spacious track, was recorded live in Byron’s studio in Arizona.
Erik says: “My original vision with this project was to combine my etheric elements with grounded and reality-oriented ​rhythmic grooves (or patterns) as the basic foundation for the music; a sound flowing freely along with the currents all the time balancing the dark with the light. I have worked with many drummers over the years, but with Byron everything fell into the right place. He’s been a professional musician for over five decades and has worked with some of the best players you can imagine. One of his real strengths is his ability to ​create the absolute right solutions for any melodic or rhythmical texture, making the arrangements complete. I noticed very quickly that he has a certain skill of playing towards and supporting a leading melody – a skill only an experienced drummer can understand.”
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.

Artist: Steve Roach & B.Metcalf & M.Seelig
P: 2004  
Like the living, breathing, meditative movement of the Sufi trance dance, MANTRAM is grounded in a reverence for the slowing of time which allows the natural reflective process to emerge. Slow heartbeat-like acoustic frame drum, overtone voice, Didgeridoo, Bansuri flute, and Tamboura drones mix with a majestic tapestry of organic electronic textures, offering the sonic equivalent of the power found when gazing into timeless Mandala images found in classic sacred art.
The entire CD holds a consistent interconnected feeling that seems to spiral outwards when experienced in repeat playback. Ethno-ambient travellers, those looking for a sustained exotic mood, anyone wanting ambient music with a global beat to it and an introspective tranquillity. Karunesh too recently produced a CD built around Asian sounds in Call of the Mystic - but, whereas, his music develops gentle new age melodies, Mantram is more sober, unstructured, mesmerizing, pensive.

Artist: Steve Roach & Byron Metcalf
P: 2010
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.

Artist: Steve Roach + Byron Metcalf + Mark Seelig
P: 2008
A continuous flow in seven parts. Low drones and something like eerie sitar music lend an otherworldly feel to the first of seven parts that play as one continuous piece of music. World and ambient music are fused together harmoniously as wood flutes, clay pots, overtone vocals, and of course Steve’s various treatments combine into a unified whole.
The album is similar to Mantram in that it goes very deep, practically demanding the listener reach a different plane of consciousness. Each track is called an excerpt rather than a part, further emphasizing the intended continuous listening experience. Until tribal drums arrive in the fourth passage, the music evolves incredibly slowly, but once change comes it comes boldly, the drums bleating insistently and continuing into part five, which becomes more intense and dramatic.
Things calm a bit in the sixth excerpt as flutes return, and further still on the 17-minute closing section which makes for a soothing relaxing finish.

Artist: Steve Roach & Byron Metcalf
P: 2010
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.
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 of 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.

Artist: Steve Roach & Byron Metcalf
P: 2000   
Ambient explorer Roach and percussionist Metcalf originally began this as an experiment into the effects of breathwork and the use of sound on a person "as a shamanic strategy for healing, personal growth, and transformation." The successful effects their music had in group settings were extended into these compositions. While billed as a collaboration between the two men, The Serpent's Lair also features contributions by (deep breath) violinist Vicki Richards, overtone vocalist Jim Cole, pre-Hispanic sound sorcerer Jorge Reyes, singer Lena Stevens, synthesist Vidna Obmana, "groove alchemist" Vir Unis, and djembe players Jeffrey Fayman and Momodu "Mohammad" Kah. The two discs in this package act as yin and yang--the eight parts of the first disc, "The Serpent's Lair," highlight intoxicatingly hypnotic drum rhythms slicing through churning ambient spaces, while the seven cuts that make up the second disc, "Offerings from the Underworld," travel down darker, spacier streams with subtle rhythms, reverberant vocals, and exotic aerophones caressing and riding the ethereal aural waves. This invigorating combination of musicians invents a dynamic new perspective on Roach's trademark deep-listening forays. It would be wonderful to hear more collaborations like this.
All music arranged, mixed, melted and recorded by Steve Roach at the Timeroom Studio, Tucson AZ. 1999 - 2000
Music produced by Steve Roach and Byron Metcalf.

With musical help from:
Vicki Richards - serpentine violin in The Lair
Lena Stevens - processed voice
Vidna Obmana - harmonic wave in pt. I in Rite Of Passage.
Jeffery Faymanand Momodu "Mohammad" Kah - djembe in Rite Of Passage, Big Medicine and Future Tribe
Jorge Reyes - voice, flutes, ocarinas, whistles, shamanic percussion and voice in Birthright and Cave Dwellers
Vir Unis - groove alchemy in Beating Hearth Of The Dragon Mother and Lena - voice in Ochua

Artist: Steve Roach & Metcalf & Seelig
P: 2003    
"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 Bonsuri flutes, sacred chants and overtone singing, simmering percussion and other hybrid grooves, augmented by rich offerings of deep drift ambient synthesizer and didgeridoo from special guest, soundscape maestro Steve Roach.
Fans of THE SERPENT'S LAIR will be thrilled by this innovative and heart-stirring alchemy.
This project was built around Byron's evolving style of acoustic and processed percussion pieces pulsing in the spirit of THE SERPENT'S LAIR with Steve Roach. The spiritually rich overtone voice and flute of Mark Seelig creates a unique stirring blend that is organinc at the core. Although Steve was consumed with the creation of MYSTIC CHORDS & SACRED SPACES, he joined in on the project later on, adding soundworlds and processing throughout. This release sets the stage for a second project in production now, a full collaboration between Byron, Mark and Steve that was mapped out during a recent week this summer at the Timeroom.
Produced, recorded and moxed by Byron Metcalf at The Lair, Prescott, AZ, USA
Steve Roach parts recorded at The Timeroom, Tucson, AZ, USA
Tracks 1-5 composed by Byron Metcalf and Mark Seelig
Track 6 composed by Mark Seelig and Steve Roach With Steve Roach.

Artist: Steve Roach, Patrick O'Hearn & Byron Metcalf
P: 2004    
Within the opening moments of FEVER DREAMS' first track, "Wicked Dream" featuring Patrick O'Hearn on bass, it is clear that a new chapter is opening on Steve Roach's long and winding pursuit of potent soundworlds far off the traveled path.
The music's foundation is built upon long mid-tempo hybrid grooves with strong bass elements created from a combination of acoustic and electronic means.
Steve Roach's atmospheric and loop-spun melodic guitar textures rise and fall, intermix with his synth and computer alchemy to create an aura of complex emotional import. The overall feeling of FEVER DREAMS is one shrouded in an exotic amber-colored light filtering through an overgrown mental landscape of last night's lingering FEVER DREAMS; the sensual atmosphere is especially present on the 30 minute track "Tantra Mantra" featuring percussionist Byron Metcalf.
This release of floating, hypnotic groove meditations sets the course on a new direction presented over the three interconnected "Fever releases" planned throughout 2004.
Steve Roach - synthesizers
Patrick O'Hearn - bass
Byron Metcalf - percussion