The Shamans Heart II

The second of Byron Metcalf's The Shaman's Heart series -- like the first volume, done with the assistance of regular collaborator Steve Roach -- is, again like its predecessor, focused around a continuous "heartbeat" pace, around which the two performers stretch out and explore a variety of instrumental and textural possibilities. Unlike the first volume, every piece is part of a larger whole divided into ten untitled tracks, but by no means is it simply a steady progression that doesn't change at all. If anything, the album is one lengthy slow crest, as extra percussion and instrumental and vocal touches build and combine. By the seventh part of the piece, the drumming has become noticeably louder and more up-front, with everything suddenly climaxing in the sudden ending of the eighth track. It leaves the final two parts as a steady falling away from that dramatic silence, with gentler distant beats again taking the lead before everything concludes in a slowly rising and falling shimmer. ~ Ned Raggett