BYRON METCALF - BILLY DENK, Activation

With their masterful first dual ambient-tribal trance album Activation, veteran instrumental artists, visionary sonic imagineers and innovators Byron Metcalf and Billy Denk invite us to experience something deeply personal and visceral yet transcendent and soul-transformative, creating expansive, richly immersive musical landscapes to facilitate foundational, enduring connections to our authentic inner selves, sparking dreams and imagination that help us explore our inner worlds as well as the intense mysteries of the universe we inhabit.

While Metcalf and Denk are labelmates on Wayfarer Records, an influential label in the realm of ambient, electronic and cinematic music, the duo’s effortless intricate alchemy is rooted in their mutual desire to create musical soulscapes that move beyond form or genre and function as an experiential space, something felt intuitively as much as it is heard. From the empowering, intent filled, flesh, bone and spirit moving opening track “Activation” through the dreamy, drifting exhale of “Essential Peace,” the two create a synchronicity beyond simple description, opening those natural and supernatural portals to a fuller embrace of being.

Denk says, “Each composition had to feel alive – capable of connecting directly with the listener and initiating a subtle but tangible shit. The goal was always activation: music that invites presence, stirs emotion and sets energy in motion rather than leaving it at rest.” Though the surreal results of those bold aims in their production feel otherworldly, they’re grounded in stuff of the earth. Metcalf’s arsenal includes various frame drums, buffalo drums, a grandfather drum, udu, rattles and shakers and spirit breath. To create his hypnotic drones and quiet atmospheric fire, Denk draws on his expertise on synthesizers, treated guitars and electronic effects.

On a personal note, I came into the experience of Activation with great reverence and anticipation, having forged a deep bond with the unique music of both prolific artists. My first encounter with Metcalf was They Were Here, a dual album with fellow shamanic healer and vocalist Jennifer Grais that I called “an epic, sacred and emotionally evocative masterwork celebrating the grace, tenderness and intense tribal power of America’s wild horses.” More recently, I praised the percussionist’s Wayfarer debut Rituals of Passion, a duo album with classical violinist Ari Urban. I also had the privilege of reviewing two of Denk’s recent works, In Praise of Shadows (2023) and Meditations of the Cosmos (2025), calling the latter “much warmer in sound and content and awash in airy, embracing synths, whereas the previous recording had more experimental textures to depict light and shade and a subtle melancholy.”

With a project whose purpose and ultimate achievement is so transformational, it makes sense to tap into the intricacies of the artists’ vision and the broad and intricate strokes it took to bring to fruition. Denk offers, “I would describe this as a conceptual album in the sense that each piece is intentionally connected through the idea of activation. Every composition functions as a different entry point into the same process – using sound to gently loosen the mind’s habitual grip on analysis and expectation, allowing attention to shift away from thought and into direct experience.

“As the music unfolds,” he adds, “listening becomes embodied. Rhythm, texture, and tone invite the body itself to receive the sound, transforming the act of listening into a physical and emotional presence rather than a purely mental one. In that state, memory, emotion, and instinct are no longer separate – they arise together, layered and responsive, giving the listener access to a more integrated and immediate way of experiencing the music.”

The initiation of each of the eight pieces followed a natural division of roles that felt intuitive rather than assigned. Denk often opened the doorway by introducing a drone or melodic fragment – sometimes, as he says, “sparse, sometimes quietly insistent” – that established the tonal center and emotional atmosphere of the piece. These elements functioned as something of a grounding field, giving the music a sense of direction while leaving space for it to breathe and evolve.

On the tracks Denk initiated, Metcalf would respond with deeply felt drum elements, entering “not as a timekeeper but as an emotional catalyst,” with rhythms guided less by structure than intuitive listening – shaping pulse, texture and intensity in conversation with the drone energy. “The drums brought the music into the body, transforming the initial harmonic idea into something embodied and alive,” Denk says.

Other pieces began with Metcalf establishing the first rhythmic gesture – an empathic, deliberate pulse or textured percussive pattern that instantly established the emotional temperature. More than a fixed groove, these rhythms serve as an invitation, carrying, as Denk explains, “intention and momentum while remaining open-ended. For these, the drums created a sense of movement before harmony appeared, giving the music a physical center from the get-go.

In a time where listeners often curate playlists choosing single tracks from full length projects to fashion a cool “vibe,” Activation serves as a defiant beacon of wholeness, where there may be separate tracks but they’re to be experience as something an all at once “eternal now,” seamlessly flowing from one to the next as they move through different states of musical being – from trance, vision, recall and release to an ultimate sense of healing and a fulfilled soul. Denk says it perfectly about the majestic shifts that can happen when one listens straight through from the ominous atmosphere and subtle, then growing “heartbeats” at the start of the title track through the peaceful yet haunting ambience at the end of “Essential Peace”: “The music isn’t trying to push anyone somewhere specific; it’s creating the conditions for those experiences to surface naturally.

While the aforementioned opening and closing pieces serve as a way to state the intention of the album (“Activation”) and serve as the serene “exhale” (“Essential Peace”), it’s truly up to us listeners to connect with every bit of sonic energy Metcalf and Denk unfurl into our minds, hearts, souls and yes, guts, souls along this splendid, empowering journey. The impressions I offer are simply my humble responses to the sonic world the duo creates. Each listener will bring to it their individual desires, needs and life experiences.

“A Steady Presence” offers an engaging swirl of Denk’s droning densities, experimental exotic global textures and droning hypnosis with Metcalf’s sensual booming drum patterns bouncing between ears. It feels like a dance between the two, rendering the unique title they came up with something of a spiritual interplay that can invoke dancing with the returning spirits of loved ones on the other side or perhaps aligning with divine energy. “Sanctum of Shadows” begins with haunting atmospheres and wafting spacey sounds before the drums power in and work their tribal fire motifs as the piece journeys further into space with more inventive synth textures. To me, this is the piece on the album that showcases the grounded earthy reality of music and the cosmic possibilities – and how those dynamics work together.

While most of the album finds Metcalf fashioning fairly intense drum patterns, the gracefully illuminating “Awakening Sky” reflects a more subtle approach, with softer, underlying textures and a hypnotic one-two drum pattern repeating throughout the relaxing atmospheric grandeur Denk creates. This one feels like a soft morning sunrise stretch after an exciting night of dancing with every fiber of our being. The oxymoronically titled “Fire Tender” features Metcalf’s artful tapestry of booming heartbeat percussion and lighter more eclectic patterns over the richly textured deep space ventures that Denk is so adept at. This piece feels like we’re tethered to the sacredness of the earth even as we explore the mysterious realms beyond.

Denk offers an insightful comment on the ever-intriguing “Mind Pigments,” which features what feels like a locomotive percussion pattern and an adventurous, emotionally building orchestral flair that renders this piece as a sweeping cinematic exploration of our inner and outer worlds. He says, “Mind Pigments’ grew out of a fascination with how rhythm and repetition can subtly rewire attention. The beat is compelling without being aggressive, while the hypnotic synth layers feel like colors slowly bleeding into one another. In the arc of the record, it deepens the trance, pulling the listener inward and blurring the line between thought, sensation, and imagination.”