Cast of Characters:
xian3-- @xian3 – vocals, lyrics, and beat programming
Holger Engel—bass
Llanpsych-- @llanpsych -- guitar, mix, and production
Entheogenic Psychonaught (Josh Clary)-- @josh-clary-1 – lead guitar, organ, and synth
 
This song started when Xian and Holger came up with the rhythm section. Xian reached out to me about adding some guitar and keys. I happily accepted and added some electric guitar, organ, and synth. Once I was done, I sent it back to Xian, who added his excellent vocals. Tez also added some subtle, yet thrilling psychedelic guitar to it, too, before producing and mixing it for us. 
  During a little odyssey Xian recently undertook, he came across this snippet of text, from which the lyrics were drawn, in the Museum of Literature in Dublin. It's from "Ulysses" (1923) by James Joyce (1882-1941) and he liked it immediately. The passage can be found in the episode "Cyclops", in which the novel's hero, Bloom, opposes division and prejudice.
  This is the first time Xian has collaborated with Tez and me, but we hope it won't be the last. Xian is everything we could ask for in a collaborator. He presented me with a really solid, but very open song, let me do my thing, and added more greatness to finish it off. We hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we enjoyed making it.
Lyrics to Alf And Bloom:

(But it’s no use) …

(- What? says Alf) …     

But it’s no use says he
Force, hatred, history
All that
That’s not life 
For men and women,

(- What? says Alf) …

Insult and hatred
And everybody knows that
It’s the very opposite of that
That is really life.

- What? says Alf
- Love, says Bloom

(- What? says Alf)
(- Love, says Bloom)

(- Love)

Alf and Bloom (with Xian3, Llanpsych, and Holger Engel)

"Magic is what we do. Music is how we do it." -- Jerry Garcia

Welcome to my page, my peers, associates, friends, and musical family. I'm a lifelong, multi-instrumentalist musician who records prolifically and joyfully. You'll hear me play guitar, electric bass (regular four string, and four and five string fretless), acoustic stand-up double bass, mandolin, banjo, keys (piano, organ, synth), lap slide, sitar, and sing on my recordings here. I've been in a few dozen bands in my life, playing everything from bluegrass, jazz, rock, jam band, reggae, funk, afrobeat, Middle Eastern, traditional Irish, singer/songwriter, pop/covers, to experimental/avant garde. 
  Since I found SoundCloud a couple years ago, I've found many talented, creative people with whom to create music. However, in the summer of '23 I formed a band called The Eclectic Collective with some of my favorite musicians I've met through here. It started as a loose collective of musicians and coalesced into a core group of musicians who find other musicians with whom we'd like to make music, then run their songs through our process, and in effect add a full band. That core of The Eclectic Collective includes Tez (Llanpsych), J.J. Terrel, Ken (K2 and the Three), Stephen (Texmex Shaman), Chris (cgmaness), and Mark (mistermark). A couple of other musicians are frequent collaborators, as well, including Artur of Surfers Like Us, and Steve Vervaet of Steve's World. More recently, we've been joined by Carl of The Beautiful Dark fame. 
  The magic of music is amplified exponentially by each person adding to it. So, we really try to add our sorcery all kinds of music from all kinds of artists. Sometimes, we keep it within the group, but a lot of what we do is collaboration with other artists. Therefore these days, 100% of what I do is collaboration, within the group or with other artists on the side.
  I, and we, are also available for hire if you have a song or lyrics and you really want to add bigger instrumentation or a band and good production to it. 
  A small sampling of the artists whom I consider primary influences, and whom you will hear coming through my fingers include Phish, The Flaming Lips, The Grateful Dead, Radiohead, Rye Cooder, Steve Earle, Miles Davis, Fela Kuti, Arcade Fire, Mikey Dread, Yellowman, Purpleman, The Meditations, Michigan and Smiley, Lee Perry, Dillinger, Django Reinhardt, Impossible Recording Machine, The Allman Bros Band, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Bela Fleck, Les Claypool, Sam Bush, David Grissman, John Prine, Talking Heads, Beastie Boys, MMW, Moe., Morphine, Ween, Steve Lukather, Michael McDonald, John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, John Scofield, Victor Wooten,  Cannonball Adderly, Thelonious Monk, Flea, Parliament Funkadelic,  Frank Zappa, Prince Paul, Pete Rock, Thievery Corporation, Amon Tobin, Chet Baker, Joao Gilberto, Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Carol Kaye, Tame Impala, Mumford and Sons, Japanese Breakfast, LCD Soundsystem, Beach House, Sean Lennon, and Billy Strings, but of course there are many more. I also really like and am influenced by traditional Iranian, Palestinian, Indian, Sri Lankan, Sudanese, Mauritian, Somalian, Egyptian, West African, and Syrian music. I welcome anyone who plays non-western music to contact me for a collaboration, too.
 I'm overjoyed to have found my community on SoundCloud. This is a truly unique forum where everyone is sincerely trying to build each other up. The profoundly supportive and positive SoundCloud community has really opened up an exciting new world of collaboration for me. That is the main reason I'm in the Cloud, actually, to connect with other musicians and make music that I enjoy listening to, and hopefully others do, as well. I am ALWAYS looking to collaborate with interesting musicians, mostly though BandLab, which is where I record almost exclusively. It's a solid, free digital audio workstation hub where you can share recording projects, even if it's not where you make your recordings.
  Everything I do is live instrumental, not programmed, and using no computer beyond my phone. That's not to say that I would be opposed to using that kind of tool, it's just not my preferred medium with which to paint. If you like my music, please share it. If you want to collaborate, my BandLab handle is @bingo_pajama. Feel free to contact me at cornbreadband@hotmail.com, as well, even if you aren't on BandLab.
  If your music is primarily AI, please don't come around my page, as I'm not at all interested in complimenting a machine.
  Here's a link to music I've recorded live with a group of musicians here in Pittsburgh called The Northumberland Street Ramblers.
Check out The Northumberland Street Ramblers on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/fU4Me

Alf and Bloom (with Xian3, Llanpsych, and Holger Engel)

Entheogenic Psychonaut (Josh Clary)