Cast of characters:
The Beautiful Dark -- @thebeautifuldark -- Carl — Ovation guitar, lead vocals, lyrics, and compostion
Mistermark-- @user-432503709 -- Mark –- VST Chinese gong and VST cello
J.J. Terrell– @j-j-terrell – light VST Latin percussion, synth, and piano
K2 and the Three [and the Four]--@k2andthe3, @k2-kara –Ken -- drums
Entheogenic Psychonaught (Josh Clary)– @josh-clary-1 –Josh – Warwick fretless four-string bass, chant vocals at the end 
TexMex Shaman– @texmex-shaman –Stephen — ebow, production, mix, and mastering

 This song is the fourth Carl has written and composed with a member of Eclectic Collective in mind. This time JJ is being honored, and we all agree that he deserves it, too. Carl is a wonderful singer, songwriter, composer, and musician, and we're all grateful that he's joined our collective. 
  Here's what Carl had to say about it. "The music for this was a personal song written to myself which I never really released as I was trying to say goodbye to my own ego in the song. From that point of view I have always seen the piece as a great bit of personal therapy for me. None of the original lyrics survived and JJ gets painted by the new words .. But I thought it would be nice to reuse the composition for this. There was no big reason for it only when I decided to start a 60bpm song for JJ on piano .. I started playing Goodbye Ego and the rest is history..."
  We tackled this song like we would any other, though. Mark was first up on this, adding his VST magic in the form of a Chinese gong, as well as the cello you hear throughout. The subject of our adulation came next, with JJ adding not only his hot, yet minimal Latin percussion and essential piano, but moody synth, as well. Ken added his spicy drums after that, and once they were down, Josh jumped in with his four string fretless bass to complete the rhythm section. Josh also added the vocal chant at the end.
  All that was left was for Stephen to mix it all down for us, which he did in his always pro manner. But before he did, he also added some subtle, yet stirring ebow on his guitar. 
  As stated above, this is a continuation of our songs about us. Hope no one thinks it's arrogant. When Carl presents us with these little treasures, it's hard not to run with them, though. Always a ton of fun to make music together. We hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we enjoyed creating it.
Original lyrics by The Beautiful Dark:

Praying hands
Whatever cause
Once our greater good not lost
Bored children create their fun
We shelve French horn for this fine one
"Nice one lads" We read it all!
Vacation taken
To JJ calls
Neighbour to good Mickey Moore
Find Michigan piano pure

JJ calls
Just for us
Love lit up
Just for us

Down the road city of cars
To Howell front deck
Dad and Guitars
We jam that love then tell the world
Love and service human highway knurled
Good bi-product of happiness sought
With Croatian fun to cloud we court

Terrell Terminator in Jungle
Predator for good
Keys like Mr Bungle
Faith in more like we could
He Thanks you
It's lifestyle
Built from a porch
Good collective friend
Keep lighting that torch

Some moments sealed, marked and moulded
Pure intention
Dark blindfolded
Howl from human to Howell good soul
Keyed keystone as collective role

JJ calls
Darkness falls
Love lit up
Just for us
Love lit up
Just for us
Love lit up
Just for us
JJ calls

JJ calls
Just for us

JJ Calls (Eclectic Collective)

"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, bass (regular four string, and four and five string fretless), 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

Hello, Everyone! Do you like surf rock? Do you like the soundtrack from „Pulp Fiction” and „Kill Bill”? I try to combine surf rock with other styles of music: with indie, psychedelic, space rock, ambient, electronica… 
All pieces on my profile were written by me (unless otherwise noted in the description) 
I hope you enjoy the vibe 😎🎸

COLLABORATIONS 

I co-found a duo with my friend from Sweden, Håkan (WELL ) on synthesisers. We have recorded several tracks together, which you can easily find on my profile and on WELL's profile. My friend and I are trying to combine ambient music or space rock with a surf guitar sound in our project. Our collaboration continues 😎 Please check out Håkan’s profile on SoundCloud:

https://on.soundcloud.com/QqMQiooju5M6WSFx7

I also recorded a few tracks with my friend from Poland, Marcin Jakubowski. He is a great composer, musician and producer of electronic and ambient music. You can listen to our tracks  „On the open road to north”,  „Drifting Away” and „Space Crash” on SoundCloud 😎

https://on.soundcloud.com/bMxPLfRnmm7MaPk69

Notable are my collaborative tracks with a group of wonderful musicians from the USA and from the UK who perform under the banner of The Eclectic Collective. We were able to join forces on eight tracks (compositions of my own making): Surf Dance/ A Time Race/ The One/ See You Soon (in a better world)/ Tell Me The Truth/ Sweet Rainy Day/ Flow Of Life/ Between Sun and Moon 😎 This music goes beyond classic surf rock and into psychedelic territory with the help of incredibly talented and creative musicians such as Josh Clary (bass), Ken Karasek (drums), J.J. Terrell (keyboards), Tez Terril (guitar) and Stephen Watkins (guitar and sitar) 🌞 Listen to our songs on Josh Clary's profile:

https://on.soundcloud.com/zRWZiu92GW5C8Sv27

A special project is the track "Ghost Train" which was recorded in a quartet, with Håkan (WELL), Josh Clary and Tez Terril. It's psychedelic ambient based on a trance beat, synths, bass and guitars!🌔

https://on.soundcloud.com/9xhTU5uo5phBPj8A6

Another notable one is the project with my friend from Kansas City - Nathaniel Ehrnman. Together we created a quiet track called "Good Days”. Nathaniel added his guitar parts (slide and baritone) and harmonica to my track. His unique playing style gave the song a folk character 🍀 Please check out Nathaniel’s profile on SoundCloud:

https://on.soundcloud.com/KmSiEyaRZLmFxWGTA

In the next track called 'Clouds', our friend Bill Brooks (Remnant60) joined our duo (Nathaniel and me) on synthesizers. This combination of different musical styles gave an interesting final result, so I invite you to listen to the both songs (produced by Remnant60)🍀

A short time later, another project followed: "Between Us”. Bill Brooks (Remnant60) added his synthesizers to my guitar part and also took care of the production of this song! This is how the combination of surf music with electronica came about. 🌔
Our next collaborative piece between Bill Brooks and myself is titled: „Things Change”. Bill added his synths and bass to my guitar track and also took care of the production and mixing. The end result is available on our profiles! 😎 
Our latest track so far is “Surf Odyssey 2025” where Bill added his synths, second guitar and “ocean sounds”, and handled the mixing and production! 😎🏄🏼‍♂️ Please check out Bill’s profile (Remnant60) on SoundCloud:

https://on.soundcloud.com/Bcfbq2vJq8vZqUXM7

In 2025 I recorded two tracks with Andre (noxpox), a friend of mine and a great musician (synths, bass) from Germany: „Meltdown of the Ego” and „Surfin’ Marrakech”. He is also the producer of the both pieces. You can find many other interesting tracks on Andre’s (noxpox) profile:

https://on.soundcloud.com/RebtnaZDvscdseHA8

Enjoy surf music in a new version! 🔆🎸

MANY THANKS for listening, commenting, reposting and support 😊

Artur / Surfers like Us  

[ All rights reserved ]

Songs with a twinge of humor (and some a bit more serious).  
I do not use AI to create my songs. 
Recently I have had the urge to pick up my guitars (Taylor 114ce and Fender Squire) and I have been trying to use more guitar in my songs.  
My go to .vst plug ins are  EZkeys 2, EZ Bass and  EZ drummer 3) and my DAW is Logic Pro 11. 
I welcome your comments and enjoy listening to all the great music on SoundCloud. 
All songs are originals and copyrighted.

Progressive Metal Guitarist, Drummer, Bassist, and Keyboardist.

Manifesto

We Declare:

    That the suffering in Gaza is not a distant conflict but a wound in the conscience of humanity.

    That silence and political games by so-called Western defenders of democracy are betrayal incarnate.

    That art, music, and truth must tear through walls of apathy, breaking chains with sound and spirit.

    That to remain silent is to support the erasure of life itself.

    That we rise—voices united, hearts aflame—to amplify those crushed under siege, to shatter the walls of oppression.

    That every beat, every echo, every lyric becomes a rebellion against forgetting.

    That through collective awakening, we reclaim not just Gaza’s future but the soul of humanity.

/ -- . .  -- . -- .. --  I AM LIVING PROOF

/ : fictionalive, August 16, 2025 - 4:21 pm

/
Disclaimer: Ladies and gentlemen, and anyone who needs a special mention, I'm throwing caution to the wind and speaking out about this chaos. I'm going live, ready or not. So, sit back, relax, and try to enjoy - it's all for your own good.
/
/ -- . .  -- . -- .. --  I AM LIVING PROOF
/
//
"NOTHING UNDER THE SUN IS NOT PART OF CREATION, NOR IS IT NOT CREATION ITSELF—IT'S ONLY WHAT YOU MAKE IT. NO JUDGES, NO DIVIDES—UNITY." 
/
/ : fictionalive, July 30 - 11:11 am
/
//
For This Is The Voyage, The Legend, The Song – Where We Belong
/
/ Keep shining
/
"NOTHING UNDER THE SUN IS NOT PART OF CREATION, NOR IS IT NOT CREATION ITSELF—IT'S ONLY WHAT YOU MAKE IT. NO JUDGES, NO DIVIDES—UNITY."

1. Philosophical and Metaphysical Context

This phrase operates on a profound metaphysical premise rooted in ancient and modern spiritual thought: the idea that everything within existence ("under the sun") is inherently part of creation, yet simultaneously defies a simple binary of "creation" and "non-creation." The double negation — “is not not part” and “is not not creation” — serves as a dialectical device emphasizing paradox rather than straightforward affirmation or denial.

Nothing exists outside creation’s domain. All that "is" is both a part and a reflection of the creative whole — but perhaps creation is not a static “thing.”

It touches on panentheism or even non-dualism, suggesting creation transcends our binary modes of thought.

In this sense, the phrase challenges rigid ontologies. It rejects compartmentalization — what we consider ‘created’ vs. ‘uncreated’ is a false dichotomy.

2. Existential and Constructivist Overtones

The clause “It’s only what you make it” signifies a turn from metaphysical absolutes to personal agency and interpretation.

Creation is not a fixed category but a creative, subjective, and participatory process.

Reality is texturized by human meaning-making — your perception, actions, and judgments shape what ‘is.’

This brings in vibes of existentialism and constructivism, affirming our power and responsibility in shaping the world and imbuing it with meaning.

3. The Ethics of Judgment and Division

“No judges, no divides” strikes a moral and social chord:

It calls for radical acceptance — no external or internal authority imposes judgment.

It opposes division, sectarianism, or exclusion based on arbitrary or prejudiced distinctions.
This has echoes of universalist humanism and inclusive ethics, a plea for unity beyond fractured identities, labels, or separations.

4. Final Summation: Unity as a Creational Ethos

The closing refrain “UNITY” serves as the conceptual apex:
Unity is not merely a formal condition but an existential and creational ethos, holding the paradoxical unity of all existence despite apparent differences or judgments.
It is a call to embrace multiplicity without fragmentation — wholeness that contains diversity.

Style and Rhetoric

Paradox and Double Negatives: The use of double negatives (“not not”) is daring and poetic, evoking the style of Zen koans or 
Hegelian dialectics — prompting reflection rather than offering a direct statement. It challenges the reader to dwell in ambiguity and complexity.

Capitalization and Punctuation: The em dash creates dramatic pauses, underscoring the key thematic shifts; the capitalized “UNITY” acts as a powerful, summative slogan or mantra.

Economy of Words: Despite its complexity, the phrase remains succinct, poetic, and emphatic—a hallmark of impactful philosophical proclamations.

Cultural & Literary Resonances

Biblical Allusions: “Under the sun” recalls the Book of Ecclesiastes, with its contemplations on the nature of existence. This embeds the phrase within a long tradition of existential inquiry.

Contemporary Spirituality: The phrase resonates with New Age and postmodern spiritual ideas emphasizing non-duality, co-creation, and global unity.

Political and Social Dimensions: In a world segmented by ideologies and conflicts, “no judges, no divides” can serve as a subtle political manifesto for peace and acceptance.

A Musical Journey of FlexHead
Best known as a local Northern California Funk Band, FlexHead and their sound have developed and grown in popularity since 2015. Influenced by the community, culture, and sounds of their hometown, they perform music that speaks to fans across the musical spectrum. Their signature style has become synonymous with a diverse collection of melodies and compositions. This Funk Band is on the rise, and nothing can stop them from achieving the success they work so hard for. 

Contact FlexHead at FlexHeadFunk@gmail.com

Thx for visiting and listening, I am an amateur guitarist, play a little keybord, bass and drums too. I love music.

Thank you for listening my tracks😊
Released in the past👇
https://www.beatport.com/release/nulupo/2633029

🧘🏽⏸️⏳❤️‍🔥

.

Howdy. Carl Culliton here from Ireland. Artist name The Beautiful Dark. I toyed with the idea of changing it but doesn't feel right after 24 hours so... Back to TBD.. Thanks for all the support and inpiration. It's infinitely appreciated

Personally I don't play the SoundCloud game of equal reciprocation. Every time my life as a Dad allows me to listen to a song... I listen to the whole song as I want to give genuine feedback and also learn as much as I can whilst here. So sorry if I don't listen and like and repost loads of your songs. Id prefer to support people by actually helping with the skills I've developed and give less frequent yet valuable feedback where possible then just playing the game of likes. That said I completely understand and appreciate people that decide to do that, that's you and you are as amazing as I am so no judgement. I just want to be clear with you that you won't get any artificial spreading of your music from here but you'll get my honest opinion based on what I imagine you were aiming for. This has helped me transcend musical taste in a way. I'm always imagining what you wanted as opposed to what I like. This has opened up some serious musical doors for me, embracing music that way instead of pre judging it based on what I've already heard... Lose the taste and expand your horizons is maybe what it is suggesting... I've always been a multi genre artist but this has activated multiple genre from an artistic point of view on steroids for TBD! A musical tri sexual.... The Get to Down! 🫡
Love will win ❤️‍🔥🎶🧬🙏🪶🔆🫛🧠🤘🏽

Let's let the music do the talking!

😆...

Speaking of the music doing the talking. Make sure you use AI to enhance the development of your skill. Getting a result delivered to you that doesn't reflect your ability isn't soulful. Be honest with yourself and be honest about what technology is and how it has come to be. There is a very questionable built in theft of our spirited art works that has been used to build current LLMs so the onus is on each of us as individuals to decide both whether or not we feed that beast at all and how we let that technology feed and enhance or limit our beings...

I've had mine and I decided for now... Only my fingers and voice will feed my music. AI needs to be made conscientiously for me to embrace it at all. I may look at it for DAW automation in the future as that will free up my fingers to make better songs but I'll wait until politicians do their jobs (we'll be waiting a while no doubt) and clean it up for all of us!

Regulate AI NOW so we can label music properly

Electronic noises 
Håkan Skeneby  
I co-found a duo with my friend Artur
on guitar - Surfers Like Us